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Poor victories! but if you dare be brave,

And pleasure in the conquest have, First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain, And let th' enchantress Honour next be slain; And like a Goth or Vandal rise, Deface records and histories Of your own acts and triumphs over men: And without such advantage kill me then.

For I could muster up, as well as you,

My giants and my witches too, Which are vast Constancy, and Secretness, But these I neither look for nor profess. Kill me as woman; let me die

As a mere man; do you but try

Your passive valour, and you shall find then Naked you 've odds enough of any man.

THE DISSOLUTION.

SHE's dead, and all, which die, To their first elements resolve; And we were mutual elements to us, And made of one another.

My body then doth her's involve,

And those things, whereof I consist, hereby
In me abundant grow and burthenous,
And nourish not, but smother.
My fire of passion, sighs of air,
Water of tears, and earthy sad despair,

Which my materials be,

(But near worn out by love's security)
She, to my loss, doth by her death repair;
And I might live long wretched so,
But that my fire doth with my fuel grow.
Now as those active kings,

Whose foreign conquest treasure brings,
Receive more, and spend more, and soonest break,
This (which I'm amaz'd that I can speak)
This death hath with my store
My use increas'd.

And so my soul, more earnestly releas'd,
Will outstrip her's: as bullets flown before

A later bullet may o'ertake, the powder being more.

A

JET RING SENT.

THOU art not so black as my heart, Nor half so brittle as her heart thou art; What would'st thou say? shall both our properties by thee be spoke?

Nothing more endless, nothing sooner broke.

Marriage rings are not of this stuff; Oh! why should aught less precious, or less tough, Figure our loves? except in thy name thou have bid it say, [m' away." "I'm cheap, and nought but fashion, fling

Yet stay with me, since thou art come, Circle this finger's top, which did'st her thumb: Be justly proud, and gladly safe, that thon dost dwell with me; [thee. She that, oh! broke her faith, would soon break

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Take heed of hating me,

Or too much triumph in the victory;
Not that I shall be mine own officer,
But thou wilt lose the style of conqueror,
And hate with hate again retaliate:
If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate:
Then, lest my being nothing lessen thee,
If thou hate me, take heed of hating me.

Yet love and hate me too,

So these extremes shall ne'er their office do;
Love me, that I may die the gentler way:
Hate me, because thy love 's too great for me:
Or let these two themselves, not me, decay;
So shall I live thy stage, not triumph be:
Then lest thy love thou hate, and me undo,
O let me live, yet love and hate me too.

THE EXPIRATION.

So, go break off this last lamenting kiss,

Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away. Turn thou, ghost, that way, and let me turn this, And let ourselves benight our happiest day; As ask none leave to love; nor will we owe Any so cheap a death, as saying, Go; Go; and if that word have not quite kill'd thee, Ease me with death, by bidding me go too. Or if it have, let my word work on me, And a just office on a murd'rer do. Except it be too late to kill me so,

Being double dead, going, and bidding, Go.

THE COMPUTATION.

FROM my first twenty years, since yesterday,
I scarce believ'd thou could'st be gone away,
For forty more I fed on favours past, [last.
And forty on hopes, that thou would'st they might
Tears drown'd one hundred, and sighs blew out two;
A thousand I did neither think, nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you:
Or in a thousand more forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life; but think, that I
Am, by being dead, immortal: can ghosts die?

THE PARADOX.

No lover saith, Llove, nor any other
Can judge a perfect lover;

He thinks that else none can or will agree,
That any loves but he :

I cannot say I lov'd, for who can say

He was kill'd yesterday:

Love with excess of heat more young than old;
Death kills with too much cold;

We die but once, and who lov'd last did die,
He that saith twice, doth lie:

For though he seem to move, and stir awhile,
It doth the sense beguile.

Such life is like the light, whieh bideth yet,
When the life's light is set;

Or like the heat, which fire in solid matter
Leaves behind two hours after.

Once I lov'd and dy'd; and am now become
Mine epitaph and tomb.

Here dead men speak their last, and so do I;
Love-slain, lo, here I die.

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Then, Love, prolong my suit; for thus
By losing sport, I sport do win:
And that doth virtue prove in us,
Which ever yet hath been a sin.

My coming near may spy some ill,
And now the world is giv'n to scoff:
To keep my love (then) keep me off,
And so I shall admire thee still.

Say, I have made a perfect choice;
Satiety ourselves may kill:
Then give me but thy face and voice,
Mine eye and ear thou canst not fill.

To make me rich, oh! be not poor,
Give me not all, yet something lend;
So I shall still my suit commend,
And at your will do less or more.
But if to all you condescend,

My love, our sport, your godhead end.

LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.

STAND Still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.

These three hours, that we have spent
Walking here, to shadows went

Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd;
But now the Sun is just above our head,

We do those shadows tread :

And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd. So whilst our infant loves did grow, Disguises did and shadows flow

From us and our cares: but now 't is not so.

That love hath not attain'd the high'st degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see;
Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others; these, which come behind,
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our love's faint, and westwardly decline;
To me thou falsely thine,

And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day:
But oh! love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light;
And his short minute, after noon, is night.

NIOBE.

By children's birth and death I am become So dry, that I am now mine own sad tomb.

A BURNT SHIP.

Our of a fired ship, which by no way

But drowning could be rescu'd from the flame,
Some men leap'd forth, and ever as they came
Near the foe's ships, did by their shot decay:
So all were lost which in the ship were found,
They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship
drown'd.

FALL OF A WALL.

UNDER an under-min'd and shot-bruis'd wall,
A too bold captain perish'd by the fall,
Whose brave misfortune happiest men envy'd,
That had a tower for tomb his bones to hide.

A LAME BEGGAR.

"I AM unable,” yonder beggar cries, "To stand or move;" if he say true, he lies.

A SELF-ACCUSER.

Your mistress, that you follow whores, still taxeth you;

"Tis strange, that she should thus confess it, though't be true.

A LICENTIOUS PERSON. THY sins and hairs may no man equal call; For as thy sins increase, thy hairs do fall.

ANTIQUARY.

IF in his study he hath so much care
To hang all old strange things, let his wife beware.

DISINHERITED.

THY father all from thee, by his last will, Gave to the poor; thou hast good title still

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RADERUS.

Hy this man gelded Martial, I amuse;

cept himself alone his tricks would use,

For though her eyes be small, her mouth is great; Though their's be ivory, yet her teeth be jet; Though they be dim, yet she is light enough,

= Cath'rine, for the court's sake, put down stews. And though her harsh hair 's foul, her skin is rough;

MERCURIUS GALLO-BELGICUS.

KE Esop's fellow-slaves, O Mercury, hich could do all things, thy faith is; and I Eke Esop's self, which nothing; I confess, should have had more faith, if thou had'st less; hy credit lost thy credit: 't is sin to do,

this case, as thou would'st be done unto, To believe all: change thy name; thou art like Mercury in stealing, but liest like a Greek. Compassion in the world again is bred: Ralphius is sick, the broker keeps his bed.

ELEGIES.

ELEGY I.

JEALOUSY.

What though her cheeks be yellow, her hair's red,
Give her thine, and she hath a maidenhead.
These things are beauty's elements; where these
Meet in one, that one must, as perfect, please.
If red and white, and each good quality
Be in thy wench, ne'er ask where it doth lie.
In buying things perfum'd, we ask if there
Be musk and amber in it, but not where.
Though all her parts be not in th' usual place,
Sh' hath yet the anagrams of a good face.
If we might put the letters but one way,
In that lean dearth of words, what could we say?
When by the gamut some musicians make
A perfect song; others will undertake,
By the same gamut chang'd, to equal it.
Things simply good can never be unfit ;
She's fair as any, if all be like her;
And if none be, then she is singular.
All love is wonder; if we justly do
Account her wonderful, why not lovely too?
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies;
Choose this face, chang'd by no deformities.
Women are all like angels; the fair be

Like those which fell to worse: but such as she,
Like to good angels, nothing can impair:

FOND woman, which would'st have thy husband die, T is less grief to be foul, than t' have been fair.

And yet complain'st of his great jealousy:

If swoln with poison he lay in 's last bed,
His body with a serecloth covered,

Drawing his breath, as thick and short as can
The nimblest crocheting musician,
Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew
His soul out of one Hell into a new,
Made deaf with his poor kindred's howling cries,
Begging with few feign'd tears great legacies,
Thou would'st not weep, but jolly and frolic be,
As a slave which to morrow should be free;
Yet weep'st thou, when thou seest him hungerly
Swallow his own death, heart's-bane jealousy.
O give him many thanks, he 's courteous,
That in suspecting kindly warneth us;
We must not, as we us'd, flout openly
In scoffing riddles his deformity:
Nor, at his board together being sat,
With words, nor touch, scarce looks adulterate.
Nor, when he swoln and pamper'd with high fare
Sits down and snorts, cag'd in his basket chair,
Must we usurp his own bed any more,
Nor kiss and play in his house, as before.
Now do I see my danger; for it is
His realm, his castle, and his diocese.
But if (as envious men, which would revile
Their prince, or coin his gold, themselves exile
Into another country, and do it there)

We play in another's house, what should we fear?
There will we scorn his household policies,
His silly plots and pensionary spies;
As the inhabitants of Thames' right side

Do London's mayor; or Germans the pope's pride.

ELEGY II.

THE ANAGRAM.

MARRY, and love thy Flavia, for she

Hath all things, whereby others beauteous be;

For one night's revel silk and gold we choose,
But in long journies cloth and leather use.
Beauty is barren oft; best husbands say,
There is best land, where there is foulest way.
Oh, what a sovereign plaster will she be,
If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy!
Here needs no spies nor eunuchs, her commit
Safe to thy foes, yea, to a marmosit.
Like Belgia's cities, when the country drowns,
That dirty foulness guards and arms the towns;
So doth her face guard her; and so for thee,
Who, forc'd by business, absent oft must be;
She, whose face, like clouds, turns the day to night,
Who, mightier than the sea, makes Moors seem
white;

Whom, though seven years she in the stews had laid,
A nunnery durst receive, and think a maid;
And though in childbirth's labour she did lie,
Midwives would swear 't were but a tympany;
Whom, if she accuse herself, I credit less
Than witches, which impossibles confess.
One like none, and lik'd of none, fittest were;
For things in fashion every man will wear.

ELEGY III.

CHANGE.

ALTHOUGH thy hand and faith, and good works too,
Have seal'd thy love, which nothing should undo,
Yea though thou fall back, that apostasy
Confirms thy love; yet much, much I fear thee.
Women are like the arts, forc'd unto none,
Open to all searchers, unpriz'd if unknown.
If I have caught a bird, and let him fly,
Another fowler, using those means as I,
May catch the same bird; and as these things be,
Women are made for men, not him, nor me.

Foxes, goats, and all beasts,change when they please, | But, oh! too common ill, 1 brought with me
Shall women, more hot, wily, wild, than these,
Be bound to one man, and bid Nature then
Idly make them apter t' endure than men?
They 're our clogs, not their own; if a man be
Chain'd to a galley, yet the galley 's free. [there,
Who hath a plough-land, casts all his seed-corn
And yet allows his ground more corn should bear;
Though Danuby into the sea must flow,
The sea receives the Rhine, Volga, and Po,
By Nature, which gave it this liberty.
Thou lov'st, but oh! can'st thou love it and me?
Likeness glues love; and if that thou so do,
To make us like and love, must I change too?
More than thy hate, I hate 't; rather let me
Allow her change, than change as oft as she;
And so not teach, but force my opinion,
To love not any one, nor every one.
To live in one land is captivity,
To run all countries a wild roguery;
Waters stink soon, if in one place they 'bide,
And in the vast sea are more putrify'd:
But when they kiss one bank, and leaving this
Never look back, but the next bank do kiss,
Then are they purest; change is the nursery
Of music, joy, life, and eternity.

That, which betray'd me to mine enemy:
A loud perfume, which at my entrance cry'd
E'en at thy father's nose, so were we spy'd.
When, like a tyrant king, that in his bed
Smelt gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered;
Had it been some bad smell, he would have though
That his own feet or breath the smell had wrough
But as we in our isle imprisoned,

Where cattle only, and divers dogs are bred,
The precious unicorns strange monsters call,
So thought he sweet strange, that had none at all
I taught my silks their whistling to forbear,
E'en my oppress'd shoes dumb and speechless were
Only, thou bitter sweet, whom I had laid
Next me, me traitorously hast betray'd,
And unsuspected hast invisibly

ELEGY IV.

THE PERFUME.

ONCE, and but once, found in thy company,
All thy supposed 'scapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is question'd there
By all the men that have been robb'd that year,
So am I (by this traitorous means surpris'd)
By the hydroptic father catechis'd.
Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to kill a cockatrice;
Though he hath oft sworn, that he would remove
Thy beauty's beauty, and food of our love,
Hope of his goods, if I with thee were seen;
Yet close and secret, as our souls, we 've been.
Though thy immortal mother, which doth lie
Still buried in her bed, yet will not die,
Takes this advantage to sleep out day-light,
And watch thy entries and returns all night;
And, when she takes thy hand, and would seem kind,
Doth search what rings and armlets she can find;
And kissing notes the colour of thy face,
And fearing lest thou 'rt swoln, doth thee embrace;
And, to try if thou long, doth name strange meats,
And notes thy paleness, blushes, sighs, and sweats,
And politicly will to thee confess

The sins of her own youth's rank lustiness;
Yet love these sorc'ries did remove, and move
Thee to gull thine own mother for my love.
Thy little brethren, which like fairy sprites
Oft skipp'd into our chamber those sweet nights,
And kiss'd and dandled on thy father's knee,
Were brib'd next day; to tell what they did see:
The grim eight foot high iron-bound serving-man,
That oft names God in oaths, and only then,
He that, to bar the first gate, doth as wide.
As the great Rhodian Colossus stride,
Which, if in Hell no other pains there were,
Makes me fear Hell, because he must be there:
Though by thy father he were hir'd to this,
Could never witness any touch or kiss.

At once fled unto him, and stay'd with me.
Base excrement of earth, which dost confound
Sense from distinguishing the sick from sound;
By thee the silly amorous sucks his death,
By drawing in a leprous harlot's breath;
By thee the greatest stain to man's estate
Falls on us, to be call'd effeminate;

Though you be much lov'd in the prince's hall,
There things, that seem, exceed substantial.
Gods, when ye fum'd on altars, were pleas'd well,
Because you 're burnt, not that they lik'd your smell.
You're loathsome all, being ta'en simply alone,
Shall we love ill things join'd, and hate each one?
If you were good, your good doth soon decay;
And you are rare, that takes the good away.
All my perfumes I give most willingly

T embalm thy father's corse. What! will he die?

ELEGY V.

HIS PICTURE.

HERE take my picture; though I bid farewell:
Thine in my heart, where my soul dwells, shall dwell,
"T is like me now, but, I dead, 't will be more,
When we are shadows both, than 't was before.
When weather-beaten I come back; my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun-beams tann'd;
My face and breast of hair-cloth, and my head
With care's harsh sudden hoariness o'erspread;
My body a sack of bones, broken within,
And powder's blue stains scatter'd on my skin:
If rival fools tax thee t' have lov'd a man
So foul and coarse, as, oh! I may seem then,
This shall say what I was: and thou shalt say,
"Do his hurts reach me? doth my worth decay?
Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
Should now love less, what he did love to see?
That which in him was fair and delicate,
Was but the milk, which in love's childish state
Did nurse it: who now is grown strong enough
To feed on that, which to weak tastes seems tough.”

ELEGY VI.

OH! let me not serve so, as those men serve,
Whom honour's smokes at once flatter and starve:
Poorly enrich'd with great men's words or looks:
Nor so write my name in thy loving books;

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