To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls
I give my physic books; my written rolls
Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give;

My brazen medals unto them which live

In want of bread; to them which pass among
All foreigners mine English tongue.

Thou, Love! by making me love one

Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

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For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo
The world by dying; because Love dies too.
Then all your beauties will be no more worth
Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth;
And all your graces no more use shall have

Then a sun-dial in a grave.

Thou, Love! taught'st me, by making me

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Love her who doth neglect both me and thee, [three. T' invent and practise this one way t' annihilate all

THE FUNERAL.

WHOEVER Comes to shroud me, do not harm

Nor question much

That subtle wreath of hair about mine arm:

The mystery, the sign, you must not touch,

For 'tis my outward soul,

Viceroy to that which unto heav'n being gone,

Will leave this to controul,

And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.

For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall

Thro' every part

Can tie those parts, and make me one of all,

Those hairs, which upward grow, and strength and art

Have from a better brain,

Can better do 't; except she meant that I

By this should know my pain,

As prisoners then are manacled when they're con

[demn'd to die.

Whate'er she meant by 't, bury it with me;

For since I am

Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry,

If into other hands these relics came.

As 't was humility

T'afford to it all that a soul can do,

So 't is some bravery,

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That since you would have none of me I bury some of

[you.

THE BLOSSOM.

LITTLE think'st thou, poor Flow'r!

Whom I have watch'd six or seven days,
And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour
Gave to thy growth, thee to this heighth to raise
And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough;
Little think'st thou

That it will freeze anon, and that I shall

To-morrow find thee fall'n, or not at all.

Little think'st thou, (poor heart!

That labourest yet to nestle thee,

And think'st, by hovering here, to get a part
In a forbidden or forbidding tree,

And hop'st her stiffness by long siege to bow)
Little think'st thou

That thou to-morrow, ere the sun doth wake,
Must with this sun and me a journey take.

But thou, which lov'st to be

Subtle to plague thyself, will say,

Alas! if you must go, what's that to me?
Here lies my bus'ness, and here I will stay:
You go to friends, whose love and means present
Various content

To your eyes, ears, and taste, and ev'ry part;
If then your body go, what need your heart i

Well, then stay here; but know,

When thou hast staid and done thy most,

A naked thinking heart, that makes no show,
Is to a woman but a kind of ghost.

How shall she know my heart? or, having none,
Know thee for one?

Practice may make her know some other part,
But take my word she doth not know a heart.

Meet me at Loudon then

Twenty days hence, and thou shalt see

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Me fresher and more fat, by being with men,
Than if I had staid still with her and thee.
For God's sake! if you can, be you so too:
I will give you

There to another friend, whom we shall find
As glad to have my body as my mind.

THE PRIMROSE.

BEING AT MOUNTGOMERY CASTLE,

Upon the bill on which it is situate.

UPON this Primrose hill

(Where, if Heav'n would distill

A shower of rain, each several drop might go
To his own Primrose, and grow manna so;
And where their form and their infinity

Make a terrestrial Galaxy,

As the small stars do in the sky)

I walk to find a true love, and I see

That 'tis not a mere woman that is she,

But must or more or less than woman be.

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Yet know I not which flower

I wish, a six or four:

For should my true-love less than woman be,
She were scarce any thing; and then, should she

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Be more than woman, she would get above
All thought of sex, and think to move

My heart to study her, and not to love :
Both these were monsters. Since there must reside
Falsehood in woman, I could more abide

She were by art than Nature falsify'd.

Live, Primrose! then, and thrive

With thy true number five;

And women, whom this flower doth represent,
With this mysterious number be content.

Ten is the farthest number; if half ten

Belongs unto each woman, then

Each woman may take half us men:

Or if this will not serve their turn, since all
Numbers are odd or even, since they fall
First into five, women may take us all.

THE RELIQUE.

WHEN my grave is broke up again,

Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learn'd that woman-head To be to more than one-a-bed)

And he that digs it spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,

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