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We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us to us at first convey,

Yielded their sense's force to us,

Nor are dross to us, but allay.

On man heaven's influence works not so:

But that it first imprints the air;

For soul into the soul may flow,
Tho' it to body first repair.

As our blood labours to beget
Spirits as like souls as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit

That subtle knot which makes us man;

So must pure lovers' souls descend
T'affections and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.

T'our bodies turn we then, and so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look;

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LOVE'S DEITY.

I LONG to talk with some old lover's ghost,
Who dy'd before the God of Love was born:
I cannot think that he, who then lov'd most,
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn:
But since this god produc'd a Destiny,
And that vice-nature custom lets it be,

I must love her that loves not me.

Sure they which made him god meant not so much,
Nor he in his young godhead practis'd it;

But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
His office was indulgently to fit

Actives to passives; correspondency

Only his subject was: it cannot be
Love, till I love her that loves me.

But every modern god will now extend
His vast prerogative as far as Jove,
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the God of Love.
Oh! were we waken'd by this tyranny
T'ungod this child again, it could not be
I should love her who loves not me.

Rebel and Atheist too, why murmur I,
As tho' I felt the worst that love could do?

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Love may make me leave loving, or might try
A deeper plague, to make her love me too,
Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see
Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,
If she whom I love should love me.

LOVE'S DIET,

To what a cumbersome unwieldiness

And burdenous corpulence my love had grown!
But that I did, to make it less,

And keep it in proportion,

Give it a Diet, made it feed upon

That which love worst endures, discretion.

Above one sigh a day I allow'd him not,
Of which my fortune and my faults had part;
And if sometimes by stealth he got

A she sigh from my mistress' heart,

And thought to feast on that, I let him see 'Twas neither very sound nor meant to me.

If he wrung from me a tear, I brin'd it so
With scorn or shame, that him it nourish'd not;
If he suck'd her's, I let him know

'Twas not a tear which he had got.

His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;

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Her eyes, which rowl t'wards all, weep not, but sweat.

Whatever he would dictate, I writ that,

But burnt my letters which she writ to me :
And if that favour made him fat,

I said, If any title be

Convey'd by this, ah! what doth it avail
To be the fortieth man in an entail?

Thus I reclaim'd my buzzard love, to fly

At what, and when, and how, and where, I chose; Now negligent of sport I lie,

And now, as other fawk'ners use,

I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep,
And the game kill'd, or lost, go talk or sleep.

THE WILL.

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love! some legacies. I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ;
If they be blind, then, Love! I give them thee;
My tongue to Fame; t'embassadors mine ears;
To women, or the sea, my tears.

Thou, Love! hast taught me heretofore,

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By making me love her who 'had twenty more,
That I should give to none but such as had too much

My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them who at the court do live;

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Mine ingenuity and openness

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;

My silence t' any who abroad have been;
My money to a capuchin.

Thou, Love! taught'st me, by' appointing me
To love there where no love receiv'd can be,
Only to give to such as have no good capacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;
All my good works unto the schismatics
Of Amsterdam; my best civility
And courtship to an university:
My modesty I give to soldiers bare;
My patience let gamesters share.

Thou, Love! taught'st me, by making me
Love her that holds my love disparity,

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Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity,

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I give my reputation to those

Which were my friends; mine industry to foes:

To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness;

My sickness to physicians or excess;

To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ;

And to my company my wit.

Thou, Love by making me adore

Her who begot this love in me before,'

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Taught'st me to make, as tho' I gave, when I do but

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