Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin, rewards my pain.
Love is my sin, and my dear virtue, hate;
Hate of sin, grounded on a sinful loving:
O! but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving:
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments,
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robb'd others beds' revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful, I love thee, as thou lov'st those,
Whom thine eyes woo, as mine importune thee;
Root pity in thy heart, that when
grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pity be,
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example may'st thou be deny'd !
LO! as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feather'd creatures broke away;
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch,
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her, whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face;
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent.
So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.
So will I pray, that thou may'st have thy Will,
If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.
Those lips that love's own hand did make,
Breath'd forth the sound that said, I hate,
To me that languish'd for her sake:
But when she saw my woful state,
Strait in her heart did mercy come;
Chiding that tongue, that, ever sweet,
Was us'd in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus a-new to greet:
I hate, she alter'd with an end
That follow'd it, as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
I hate, from hate away she threw,
And sav'd my life, saying not you.
A CONSIDERATION OF DEATH-IMMODERATE PASSION.
A CONSIDERATION OF DEATH.
POOR soul! the center of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth, these rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls in costly clay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy faded mansion spend?
Shall
worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross ;
Within be fed, without be rich no more.
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.
MY love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve;
Desire is death, why physic did accept.
LOVE'S POWERFUL SUBTLETY.
Past cure I am, now reason is past cure;
And frantic mad with everinore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
LOVE'S POWERFUL SUBTLETY.
O ME! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes doat,
What means the world to say it is not so!
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's. No.
How can it? O how can love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, tho' I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till Heaven clears.
O! Cunning love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
Can'st thou, O cruel! say I love thee not?
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
All of myself, all tyrant for thy sake?
LOVE'S POWERFUL SUBTLETY.
Who hatest thou, that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise;
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes!
But love, hate on; for now I know thy mind,
Those that can see, thou lov'st, and I am blind.
Oh! from what power hast thou this powerful might, With insufficiency my heart to sway;
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds ?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate ?
Oh! tho' I love what others do abhor,
With others thou should'st not abhor my state.
If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,
More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.
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