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And my great mind most kindly drinks it up;
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,"
And to his palate doth prepare the cup.

If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin,

That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin.

Those lines that I before have writ, do lie,
E'en those that said I could not love you dearer :
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reck'ning time, whose million accidents,
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Can sacred beauty blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to th' course of alt'ring things:
Alas! why fearing of time's tyranny,

Might I not then say, now I love you best,
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowding the present, doubting of the rest!
Love is a babe, then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow.

A TRIAL OF LOVE'S CONSTANCY.

Accuse me thus; that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay;
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear purchas'd right;
That I have hoisted sails to all the winds,

Which should transport me farthest from your sight;
Book both my wilfulness and error down,
And on just proof, surmise accumulate ;
Bring me within the level of your frown;
But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate :
Since my appeal says, I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.

Like as you make your appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As to prevent our maladies unseen,

We sicken, to shun sickness, when we purge:
Even so being full of your near cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And sick of welfare, found a kind of meekness,

[9] What is pleasing to the taste of my mind.
[1] Eager is sour, tart, poignant. STEEVENS.

MALONE.

To be diseas'd ere that there was true needing,
Thus policy in love, t' anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a hateful state,
Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
But thence I learn, and the fond lesson true,
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

What potions have I drank of Syren's tears,
Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within!
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win.

What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,
In the distraction of this madding fever!

O benefit of ill! now I find true,

That better is by evil still made better;
And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuke to my content,

And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

A GOOD CONSTRUCTION OF HIS LOVE'S UNKINDNESS.
That you were once unkind befriends me now;
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time;
And I a tyrant have no leisure taken,
To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.
O! that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits ;
And soon to you, as you to me then tender'd
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

ERROR IN OPINION.

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd, When not to be, receives reproach of being; And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd,

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Not by our feeling, but by other's seeing.
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties, who are frailer spies ;
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level

At my abuses, reckon up their own ;

I may be straight, tho' they themselves be bevel;2 By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain,

All men are bad, and in their badness reign.

UPON THE RECEIPT OF A TABLE-BOOK FROM HIS
MISTRESS.

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain,
Full character'd with a lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rant remain
Beyond all date even to eternity;

Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.
That poor attention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score ;
Therefore to give them from me, was I bold
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee,
Were to import forgetfulness in me.

A VOW.

No, Time! thou shalt not boast that I do change ;
Thy pyramids built up with newer might,
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
They are but dressings of a former sight.
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire
What thou dost foist upon us that is old;
And rather make them born to our desire,

Than think that we before have heard them told.
Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Not wond'ring at the present nor the past;
For thy records, and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste.

[a] Bevel, crooked; a term used by masons and joiners.

STEEVENS.

This I do vow, and this shall ever be ;
I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.

LOVE'S SAFETY.

If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for fortune's bastard be un-father'd ;
As subject to time's love or to time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.
No, it was builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,

Whereto t' inviting time our fashion calls :

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short number'd hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic,

That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers. To this I witness call the fools of time,

Which die for goodness, who have liv'd for crime.

AN INTREATY FOR HER ACCEPTANCE.

Where it ought to be, I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring ;
Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which prove more short than waste or ruining.
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour,
Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,
For compound sweet, foregoing simple favour?
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent.
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation poor but free,

Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.

Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul,
When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.

UPON HER PLAYING ON THE VIRGINALS.

How oft when thou thy music, music-play'st,
Upon that blessed wood, whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The witty concord that mine ear confounds;
Do I envy those jacks that nimbly leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,

At the wood's boldness, by thee blushing stand.
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom their fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.

IMMODERATE LUST.

Th' expence of spirit in a waste of shame,
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjur'd, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy'd no sooner, but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as a swallow'd bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,

Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,
A bliss in proof, and proud, and very woe ;
Before, a joy propos'd; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

IN PRAISE OF HER BEAUTY, THOUGH BLACK.
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name :
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame :
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profan'd; if not, lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,
At such who not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:

Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun ;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses, damask, red and white ;

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