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
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill

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
Return of love, more blest may be the view;

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 services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu ;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.

So true a fool is love, that in your will
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

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,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!

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
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

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
The second burden of a former child!

O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!

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,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow :

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.