For where I howl, all accents fall
As kings, harangues to one and all.
Ulysses art is now withstood,
You ravish both with sweet and good;
Saint Syren sing, for I dare hear,
But when I ope' oh stop your ear.
Far less be't emulation
To pass me, or in trill or tone
Like the thin throat of Philomel;
And the smart lute, who should excel,
As if her soft chords should begin
And strive for sweetness with the pin.
Yet can I music too; but such,
As is beyond all voice or touch;
My mind can in fair order chime,
Whilst my true heart still beats the time:
My soul so full of harmony,
That it with all parts can agree:
If you wind up to the highest fret
It shall descend an eighth from it,
And when you shall vouchsafe to fall
Sixteen above you it shall call,
And yet so dis-assenting one,
They both shall meet an unison.
Come then, bright cherubim, begin!
My loudest music is within:
Take all notes with your skilful eyes,
Hark, if mine do not sympathise!
Sound all my thoughts, and see express'd
The tablature of my large breast;
Then you'll admit that I too can
Music above dead sounds of man;
Such as alone doth bless the spheres,
Not to be reach'd with human ears.
Now, fie upon that everlasting life, I die!
She hates! ah, me! it makes me mad;
As if love fir'd his torch at a moist eye,
Or with his joys e'er crown'd the sad?
Oh, let me live and shout when I fall on!
Let me ev'n triumph in the first attempt!
Love's duellist from conquests not exempt
When his fair murd'ress shall not gain one groan,
And he expire ev'n in ovation.
Let me make my approach when I lie down
With counter-wrought and traverse eyes;
With peals of confidence batter the town:
Had ever beggar yet the keys?
No, I will vary storms with sun and wind;
Be rough, and offer calm condition,
March in (and pray'd) or starve the garrison, Let her make sallies hourly, yet I'll find (Though all beat off) she's to be undermin’d.
Then may it please your little Excellence
Of Hearts, t'ordain by sound of lips,
That henceforth none in tears dare love commence
(Her thoughts i'th' full, his in th' eclipse),
On pain of having's lance broke on her bed,
That he be branded all free beauties slave,
And his own hollow eyes be doom'd his grave:
Since in your host that coward ne'er was fed
Who to his prostrate e'er was prostrated.
THE APOSTACY OF ONE, AND BUT ONE LADY.
THAT frantic error I adore,
And am confirm'd the earth turns round;
Now satisfied o'er and o'er,
As rolling waves so flows the ground,
And as her neighbour reels the shore:
Find such a woman says she loves,
She's that fix'd heav'n which never moves.
In marble, steel, or porphyry,
Who carves or stamps his arms or face,
Looks it by rust or storm must dye:
This woman's love no time can raze,
Harden'd like ice in the sun's eye,
Or your reflection in a glass,
Which keeps possession though you pass.
We not behold a watch's hand
To stir, nor plants or flowers to grow: Must we infer that this doth stand,
And therefore that those do not blow? This she acts calmer, like heav'n's brand The stedfast lightning, slow love's dart, She kills but ere we feel the smart.
Oh, she is constant as the wind
That revels in an ev'ning's air!
Certain, as ways unto the blind,
More real than her flatt'ries are;
Gentle, as chains that honour bind,
More faithful than an Hebrew Jew,
But as the devil not half so true.
La Bella Bona Roba.
TO MY LADY H.
TELL me, ye subtle judges in love's treasury, Inform me which hath most enrich'd mine eye, This diamond's greatness, or its clarity?
Ye cloudy spark-lights, whose vast multitude Of fires are harder to be found than view'd, Wait on this star in her first magnitude.
Calmly or roughly! ah, she shines too much!
That now I lie (her influence is such),
Crush'd with too strong a hand, or soft a touch.
Lovers, beware! a certain, double harm
Waits your proud hopes, her looks all killing charm Guarded by her as true victorious arm.
Thus with her eyes brave Tamyris spake dread, Which when the king's dull breast not entered, Finding she could not look, she struck him dead.
I CANNOT tell who loves the skeleton
Of a poor marmoset, nought but bone, bone.
Give me a nakedness with her clothes on.
Such whose white satin upper coat of skin,
Cut upon velvet rich incarnadine,
Has yet a body (and of flesh) within.
Sure it is meant good husbandry in men,
Who do incorporate with aëry lean,
T' repair their sides, and get their rib again.
Hard hap unto that huntsman that decrees
Fat joys for all his sweat, when as he sees,
After his 'say, nought but his keeper's fees.
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