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; to ambassadors mine ears;
To women or the sea, my tears:

Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore
By making me serve her who 'd twenty more,
Only to give to those that had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give ;

My truth to them who at the Court do live;
Mine ingenuity and openness

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
My silence to any who abroad have been ;

My money to a Capuchin

Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me To love there where no love received can be, Only to give to those that have an incapacity.

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 patiënce let gamesters share :

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

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

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,

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

restore.

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 portiön

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

Than a sun-dial in a grave:

Thou, Love, taught'st me by making me

Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,

To invent and practise this one way to annihilate all

three.

THE FUNERAL

WHOEVER comes to shroud me, do not harm,
Nor question much,

That subtle wreath of hair which crowns my arm;
The mystery, the sign you must not touch;
For 't is my outward soul,

Viceroy to that, which unto heaven being gone,
Will leave this to control

And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolutiön.

For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall
Through every part

Can tie those parts, and make me one of all,
These hairs which upward grew, 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 condemn'd to die.

Whate'er she meant by it, 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

To afford to it all that a soul can do,

So 't is some bravery

That, since

you would have none of me, I bury some of

you.