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POEMS, SONGS, SONNETS.

THE FLEA.

MARK but this Flea, and mark, in this
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
Me it suck'd first, and now sucks thee,
And in this Flea our two bloods mingled be.
Confess it: this cannot be said

A sin or shame, or loss of maidenhead;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we could do.

Oh! stay; three lives in one Flea spare,

Where we almost, nay, more than marry'd are.
This Flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed and marriage temple is.
Tho' parents grudge, and you, we 're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet;
Tho' use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added he,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

10.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence ?

Wherein could this Flea guilty be,

Except in that blood which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now:

'Tis true; then learn how false fears be:

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Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this Flea's death took life from thee. 27

THE GOOD-MORROW.

I WONDER, by my troth! what thou and I

Did till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then,
But suck'd on childish pleasures sillily?
Or slumber'd we in the seven-sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but as all pleasures fancies be,
If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desir'd and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now Good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controuls,
And makes one little room an every-where.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other worlds our world have shown,
Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.

20

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest:
Where can we find two fitter hemispheres
Without sharp North, without declining West?
Whatever dies was not mix'd equally.

If our two loves be one, both thou and I

Love just alike in all; none of these loves can die. zi

SONG,

Go, and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all times past are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot:

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible go see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee:

Thou, when thou return'st wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear

No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

10

If thou find'st one let me know,

Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not; I would not go,

Tho' at next door we might meet.

Tho' she were true when you met her,
And last till you write your letter,

Yet she

Will be

False ere I come to two or three.

20

27

WOMAN'S CONSTANCY.

Now thou hast lov'd me one whole day,

To-morrow when thou leav'st what wilt thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?
Or say that now

We

We are not just those persons which we were?

Or that oaths, made in reverential fear

Of love and his wrath, any may forswear?

Or, as true deaths true marriages untie,

So lovers' contracts, images of those,

Bind but till Sleep, Death's image, them unloose? 10 Or, your own end to justify

For having purpos'd change and falsehood, you

Can have no way but falsehood to be true?

Vain lunatic! against these scapes I could
Dispute and conquer, if I would;

Which I abstain to do,

For by to-morrow I may think so too.

17

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