TO A GENTLEWOMAN OBJECTING TO HIM HIS
́Am I despised, because you say,
And I dare swear, that I am grey?
Know, lady, you have but your day;
And time will come, when you shall wear
Such frost and snow upon your hair.
And when, though long, it comes to pass,
You question with your looking-glass,
And in that sincere crystal seek,
But find no rose-bud in your cheek,
Nor any bed to give the shew:
Where such a rare carnation grew;
Ah! then too late, close in your chamber keeping, It will be told
That you are old,
By those true tears y'are weeping.
HIS PROTESTATION TO PERILLA.
Noonday and midnight shall at once be seen;
Trees at one time shall be both sere and green
Fire and water shall together lie
In one self-sweet conspiring sympathy;
Summer and winter shall at one time show
Ripe ears of corn, and up to th' ears in snow;
Seas shall be sandless, fields devoid of grass,
Shapeless the world, as when all chaos was,
Before, my dear Perilla, I will be
False to my vow, or fall away from thee.
And, cruel maid, because I see
You scornful of my love and me,
I'll trouble you no more; but go
My way, where you shall never know
What is become of me; there I
Will find me out a path to die,
Or learn some way how to forget
You, and your name, for ever: yet
Ere I go hence, know this from me,
What will in time your fortune be:
This to your coyness I will tell,
And having spoke it once, farewell!
The lily will not long endure,
Nor the snow continue pure;
The rose, the violet, one day
See; both these lady-flowers decay ;
And you must fade as well as they:
And, it may chance that love may turn,
And, like to mine, make your heart burn,
And weep to see't; yet this thing do,
That my last vow commends to you;
When you shall see that I am dead,
For pity let a tear be shed;
And, with your mantle o'er me cast,
Give my cold lips a kiss at last:
If twice you kiss, you need not fear
That I shall stir or live more here:
Next hollow out a tomb to cover
Me, me, the most despised lover
And write thereon: "this, reader, know,
Love kill'd this man." No more but so.
A RING PRESENTED TO JULIA.
Julia, I bring
To thee this ring,
Made for thy finger fit;
To shew by this
That our love is,
Or should be, like to it.
Close though it be,
The joint is free;
So, when love's yoke is on,
It must not gall,
Or fret at all
With hard oppression :
But it must play
Still either way
And be too such a yoke,
As not too wide,
To overslide,
Or be so strait to choke.
So we, who bear
This beam, must real
Ourselves to such a height,
As that the stay
Of either may
Create the burthen light.
And as this round
Is no where found
To flaw, or else to sever;
So let our love
As endless prove.
And pure as gold for ever.
TO THE WESTERN WIND.
Sweet western wind, whose luck it is
Made rival with the air,
To give Perenna's lips a kiss,
And fan her wanton hair.
Bring me but one; I'll promise thee,
Instead of common showers,
Thy wings shall be embalm'd by me,
And all beset with flowers.
That Hour glass, which there you see,
With water fill'd, sirs, credit me,
The humour was, as I have read,
But lovers tears incrystalled;
Which, as they drop by drop do pass
From th' upper to the under-glass,
Do in a trickling manner tell,
(By many a watery syllable)
That lovers' tears in life-time shed,
Do restless run when they are dead
THE SUSPICION UPON HIS OVER-MUCH FAMILIARITY
And must we part, because some say
Loud is our love, and loose our play,
And more than well becomes the day?
Alas, for pity! and for us,
Most innocent and injur'd thus.
Had we kept close, or play'd within,
Suspicion now had been the sin,
And shame had follow'd long ere this,
T'ave plagu'd what now unpunish'd is.
But we, as fearless of the sun,
As faultless, will not wish undone,
What now is done; since where no sin
Unbolts the door, no shame comes in.
Then, comely and most fragrant maid,
Be you more wary than afraid
Of these reports; because you see
The fairest most suspected be.
The common forms have no one eye
Or care of burning jealousy
To follow them; but chiefly where
Love makes the cheek and chin a sphere
To dance and play in: Trust me, there
Suspicion questions every hair.
Come, you are fair, and shou'd be seen
While you are in your sprightful green,
And what though you had been embrac'd
By me, were you for that unchaste?
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