LOVE COMMENDED AND CENSURED.
Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.
And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And, to the nightingale's complaining notes,
Tune my distresses, and record* my woes.
O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless;
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
And leave no memory of what it was!
Repair me with thy presence, Silvia;
Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain!
A FAITHFUL AND CONSTANT LOVER.
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart:
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.
PRESENTS PREVAIL WITH WOMAN.
Win her with gifts, if she respect not words;
Dumb jewels often, in their silent kind,
More than quick words, do move a woman's mind.
THE POWER OF POETRY WITH FEMALES.
Say, that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry; and with your tears
Moist it again, and frame some feeling line,
That may discover such integrity:-
For Orpheus' lute was strung with poet's sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
LOVE FROWARD AND DISSEMBLING.
Maids, in modesty, say No to that
Which they would have the profferer construe Ay.
Fie, fie! how wayward is this foolish love;
That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse,
And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!
LOVE COMPARED TO AN APRIL DAY.
O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by-and-by a cloud takes all away!
AN ACCOMPLISHED YOUNG GENTLEMAN.
His years but young, but his experience old;
His head unmellow'd, but his judgment ripe;·
And, in a word (for far behind his worth
Come all the praises that I now bestow),
He is complete in feature, and in mind,
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
And why not death, rather than living torment?
To die, is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her,
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by,
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale :
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon.
Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom
(Which, unreversed, stands in effectual force)
A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears:
Those at her father's churlish feet she tendered;
With them, upon her knees, her humble self;
Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them,
As if but now they waxed pale for woe:
But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,
Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,
Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire.
Who by repentance is not satisfied,
Is nor of heaven nor earth.
LOVE INCREASED BY ATTEMPTS TO SUPPRESS IT.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow,
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.
Luc. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire; But qualify the fire's extreme rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.
Jul. The more thou damm'st it up, the more it The current, that with gentle murmur glides, [burns; Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage; But when his fair course is not hindered,
He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
And so by many winding nooks he strays,
With willing sport, to the wild ocean.
Then let me go, and hinder not my course;
I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step have brought me to my love;
And there I'll rest, as, after much turmoil,
A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
Who should be trusted now, when one's right hand
Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,
I am sorry I must never trust thee more,
But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
The private wound is deepest.
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