If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?
MURDERING BEAUTY
I'LL gaze no more on her bewitching face,
Since ruin harbours there in every place; For my enchanted soul alike she drowns With calms and tempests of her smiles and frowns. I'll love no more those cruel eyes of hers, Which, pleased or anger'd, still are murderers: For if she dart, like lightning, through the air Her beams of wrath, she kills me with despair : If she behold me with a pleasing eye,
I surfeit with excess of joy, and die.
MEDIOCRITY IN LOVE REJECTED
'IVE me more love or more disdain ;
The torrid or the frozen zone
Bring equal ease unto my pain,
The temperate affords me none :
Either extreme of love or hate,
Is sweeter than a calm estate.
Give me a storm; if it be love,
Like Danaë in that golden shower,
I swim in pleasure; if it prove
Disdain, that torrent will devour
My vulture-hopes; and he's possess'd
Of heaven, that's but from hell released.
Then crown my joys or cure my pain :
Give me more love or more disdain.
TO MY INCONSTANT MISTRESS
thou, poor excommunicate
From all the joys of love, shalt see
The full reward and glorious fate
Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
Then curse thine own inconstancy.
A fairer hand than thine shall cure
That heart, which thy false oaths did wound; And to my soul a soul more pure
Than thine shall by Love's hand be bound,
And both with equal glory crown'd.
Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain
To Love, as I did once to thee;
When all thy tears shall be as vain
As mine were then, for thou shalt be
Damn'd for thy false apostasy.
INGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED
NOW, Celia, since thou art so proud,
"Twas I that gave thee thy renown ;
Thou had'st in the forgotten crowd
Of common beauties lived unknown,
Had not my verse exhaled thy name,
And with it imp'd the wings of Fame.
That killing power is none of thine :
I gave it to thy voice and eyes;
Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;
Thou art my star, shin'st in my skies:
Then dart not from thy borrow'd sphere
Lightning on him that fix'd thee there.
Tempt me with such affrights no more,
Lest what I made I uncreate ;
Let fools thy mystic forms adore,
I'll know thee in thy mortal state :
Wise poets that wrapp'd Truth in tales,
Knew her themselves through all her veils.
DISDAIN RETURNED
HE that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
But a smooth and steadfast mind,
Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires.
Where these are not, I despise
Lovely cheeks, or lips, or eyes.
No tears, Celia, now shall win
My resolved heart to return;
I have search'd thy soul within,
And find nought but pride and scorn :
I have learn'd thy arts, and now
Can disdain as much as thou.
Some power in my revenge convey
That love to her I cast away.
TO MY MISTRESS IN ABSENCE
HOUGH I must live here, and by force
Of your command suffer divorce ;
Though I am parted, yet my mind,
That's more myself, still stays behind.
I breathe in you, you keep my heart,
'Twas but a carcase that did part.
Then though our bodies are disjoin'd,
As things that are to place confined,
Yet let our boundless spirits meet,
And in love's sphere each other greet;
There let us work a mystic wreath,
Unknown unto the world beneath :
There let our clasp'd loves sweetly twin,
There let our secret thoughts unseen
Like nets be weaved and inter-twined,
Wherewith we'll catch each other's mind.
There, whilst our souls do sit and kiss,
Tasting a sweet and subtle bliss
(Such as gross lovers cannot know
Whose hands and lips meet here below),
Let us look down, and mark what pain
Our absent bodies here sustain,
And smile to see how far away
The one doth from the other stray;
Yet burn and languish with desire
To join and quench their mutual fire ;
There let us joy to see from far
Our emulous flames at loving war,
Whilst both with equal lustre shine,
Mine bright as yours, yours bright as mine.
There, seated in those heavenly bowers,
We'll cheat the lag and ling'ring hours,
Making our bitter absence sweet,
Till souls and bodies both may meet.
ASK me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale, when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.
Ask me no more where those stars 'light
That downwards fall in dead of night;
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become, as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest ;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
E'EN like two little bank-dividing brooks,
That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,
And having ranged and search'd a thousand nooks,
Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,
Where in a greater current they conjoin:
So I my Best-Beloved's am; so He is mine.
1 The last four stanzas are omitted. From the Emblems, Book V.
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