EBB AND FLOW WEET Love, renew thy force; be it not said SWEET Thy edge should blunter be than appetite, Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd, To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might: So, Love, be thou; although to-day thou fill The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness. Let this sad interim like the ocean be Which parts the shore, where two contracted new Come daily to the banks, that, when they see Else call it winter, which being full of care Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare. ABSENCE BEING your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour Nor dare I question with my jealous thought So true a fool is love, that in your will SUBMISSION ABSOLUTE THAT god forbid that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand the account of hours to crave, O let me suffer, being at your beck, The imprison'd absence of your liberty; And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check, Without accusing you of injury. Be where you list, your charter is so strong I am to wait, though waiting so be hell; I NIHIL NOVI, NIHIL INAUDITI IF there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains be guiled, Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss O, that record could with a backward look, That I might see what the old world could say To this composéd wonder of your frame; Whether we are mended, or whether better they, Or whether revolution be the same. O, sure I am, the wits of former days To subjects worse have given admiring praise. REVOLUTIONS LIKE as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand |