know my pain As prisoners then are manacled when they' are condem'nd to die What ere shee meant by'it bury it by me For since I am Loves martyr it might breed idolatrie If into others hands these reliques came As 't was humility To afford to it all that a Soule can doe So 't is some bravery That since you would have none of mee I bury some of you The Blossome LIttle think'st thou poore flower Whom I have watch'd sixe or seaven dayes And seene thy birth and seene what every houre Gave to thy growth thee to this height to raise And now dost laugh and triumph on this bough Little think'st thou That it will freeze anon and that I shall To morrow finde thee falne or not at all Little think'st thou poore heart That labours yet to nestle thee And think'st by hovering here to get a part In a forbidden or forbidding tree And hop'st her stiffenesse by long siege to bow Little think'st thou That thou to morrow ere that Sunne doth wake Must with this Sunne and mee a journey take But thou which lov'st to bee Subtile to plague thy selfe wilt say Alas if you must goe what 's that to mee Here lyes my businesse and here I will stay You goe to friends whose love and meanes present Various content To your eyes eares and tast and every part If then your body goe what need your heart Well then stay here but know When thou hast stayd and done thy most A naked thinking heart that makes no show Is to a woman but a kinde of Ghost How shall shee know my heart or having none Know thee for one Practise may make her know some other part But take my word shee doth not know a Heart Meet mee at London then Twenty dayes hence and thou shalt see Mee fresher and more fat by being with men Then if I had staid still with her and thee For Gods sake if you can be you so too I will give you There to another friend whom wee shall finde As glad to have my body as my minde The Primrose VPon this Primrose hill Where it Heav'n would distill A shoure of raine each severall drop might goe To his owne primrose and grow Manna so And where their forme and their infinitie Make a terrestriall Galaxie As the small starres doe in the skie I walke to finde a true Love and I see That 't is not a mere woman that is shee But must or more or lesse then woman bee Yet know I not which flower I wish a sixe or foure For should my true-Love lesse then woman bee She were scarce any thing and then should shee Be more then woman shee would get above All thought of sexe and thinke to move My heart to study her and not to love Both these were monsters Since there must reside Falshood in woman I could more abide She were by art then Nature falsify'd Live Primrose then and thrive With thy true number five And women whom this flower doth represent With this mysterious number be content Ten is the farthest number if halfe ten Belongs unto each woman then Each woman may take halfe us men Or if this will not serve their turne Since all Numbers are odde or even and they fall First into this five women may take us all The Relique WHen my grave is broke up againe Some second ghest to entertaine For graves have learn'd that woman-head To be to more then one a Bed And he that digs it spies A bracelet of bright haire about the bone Will he not let'us alone And thinke that there a loving couple lies Who thought that this device might be some way To make their soules at the last busie day Meet at this grave and make a little stay If this fall in a time or land Where mis-devotion doth command Then he that digges us up will bring Us to the Bishop and the King To make us Reliques then Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen and I A something else thereby All women shall adore us and some men And since at such time miracles are sought I would have that age by this paper taught What miracles wee harmelesse lovers wrought First we lov'd well and faithfully Yet knew not what wee lov'd nor why Difference of sex no more wee new Then our Guardian Angells doe Comming and going wee Perchance might kisse but not between those meales Our hands ne'r toucht the seales Which nature injur'd by late law sets free These miracles wee did but now alas All measure and all language I should passe Should I tell what a miracle shee was The Dampe WHen I am dead and Doctors know not why And my friends curiositie Will have me cut up to survay each part When they shall finde your Picture in my heart You thinke a sodaine dampe of love Will through all their senses move And worke on them as mee and so preferre Your murder to the name of Massacre Poore victories But if you dare be brave And pleasure in your conquest have First kill th'enormous Gyant your Disdaine And let th'enchantresse Honor next be slaine And like a Goth and Vandall rize Deface Records and Histories Of your owne arts and triumphs over men And without such advantage kill me then For I could muster up as well as you My Gyants and my Witches too Which are vast Constancy and Secretnesse But these I neyther looke for nor professe Kill mee as Woman let mee die As a meere man doe you but try Your passive valor and you shall finde than In that you'have odds enough of any man The Dissolution SHee'is dead And all which die To their first Elements resolve And wee were mutuall Elements to us And made of one another My body then doth hers involve And those things whereof I consist hereby In me abundant grow and burdenous And nourish not but smother My fire of Passion sighes of ayre Water of teares and earthly sad despaire Which my materialls bee But ne'r worne out by loves securitie Shee to my losse doth by her death repaire And I might live long wretched so But that my fire doth with my fuell grow Now as those Active Kings Whose foraine conquest treasure brings Receive more and spend more and soonest breake This which I am amaz'd that I can speake This death hath with my store My use encreas'd And so my soule more earnestly releas'd Will outstrip hers As bullets flowen before A latter bullet may o'rtake the pouder being more A Ieat King sent THou art not so black as my heart Nor halfe so brittle as her heart thou art What would'st thou say shall both our properties by thee bee spoke Nothing more endlesse nothing sooner broke Marriage rings are not of this stuffe Oh why should ought lesse precious or lesse tough Figure our loves Except in thy name thou have bid it say I 'am cheap nought but fashion fling me'away Yet stay with mee since thou art come Circle this fingers top which did'st her thombe Be
by the Makers will from pulling free IX Prince of the orchard faire as dawning morne Fenc'd with the law and ripe as soone as borne That apple grew which this Soule did Till the then climing serpent that now creeps For that offence for which all mankinde weepes Tooke it and t' her whom the first man did wive Whom and her race only forbiddings drive He gave it she t' her husband both did eate So perished the eaters and the meate And wee for treason taints the blood thence die and sweat X. Man all at once was there by woman slaine And one by one we' are here slaine o'er againe By them The mother poisoned the well-head The daughters here corrupts us No smalnesse scapes no greatnesse breake their nets She thrust us out and by them we are led Astray from turning to whence we are fled Were prisoners Judges t' would seeme rigorous Shee sinn'd we here part of our paine is thus To love them whose fault to this painfull love yoak'd us XI So fast in us doth this corruption grow That now wee dare aske why wee should be so Would God disputes the curious Rebell make A law and would not have it kept Or can His creatures will crosse his Of every man For one will God and be just vengeance take Who sinn'd t' was not forbidden to the snake Nor her who was not then made nor i' st writ That Adam cropt or knew the apple yet The worme and she and he and wee endure for it XII But snatch mee heavenly Spirit from this vaine Reckoning their vanities lesse is their gaine Then hazard still to meditate on ill Though with good minde their reasons like those toyes Of glassie bubles with the gamesome boyes Stretch to so nice a thinnes through a quill That they themselves breake doe themselves spill Arguing is heretiques game and Exercise As wrastlers perfect them Not liberties Of speech but silence hands not tongues end heresies XIII Just in that instant when the serpents gripe Broke the slight veines and tender conduit-pipe Through which this soule from the trees root did draw Life and growth to this apple fled away This loose soule old one and another day As lightning which one scarce dares say he saw 'T is so soone gone and better proofe the law Of sense then faith requires swiftly she flew To a darke and foggie Plot Her her fates threw There through th'earth-pores and in a Plant hous'd her a new XIV The plant thus abled to it selfe did force A place where no place was by natures course As aire from water water fleets away From thicker bodies by this root thronged so His spungie confines gave him place to grow Just as in our streets when the people stay To see the Prince and so fill'd the way That weesels scarce could passe when she comes nere They throng and cleave up and a passage cleare As if for that time their round bodies flatned were XV. His right arme he thrust out towards the East West-ward his left th' ends did themselves digest Into ten lesser strings these fingers were And as a slumberer stretching on his bed This way he this and that way scattered His other legge which feet with toes upbeare Grew on his middle parts the first day haire To show that in loves businesse hee should still A dealer bee and be us'd well or ill His apples kinde his leaves force of conception kill XVI A mouth but dumbe he hath blinde eyes deafe eares And to his shoulders dangle subtile haires A young Colossus there hee stands upright And as that ground by him were conquered A leafie garland weares he on his head Enchas'd with little fruits so red and bright That for them you would call your Loves lips white So of a lone unhaunted place possest Did this soules second Inne built by the guest This living buried man this quiet mandrake rest XVII No lustfull woman came this plant to grieve But t' was because there was none yet but Eve And she with other purpose kill'd it quite Her sinne had now brought in infirmities And so her cradled child the moist red eyes Had never shut nor sleept since it saw light Poppie she knew she knew the mandrakes might And tore up both and so coold her childs blood Unvirtuous weeds might long unvex'd have stood But hee 's short liv'd that with his death can doe most good XVIII To an unfetterd soules quick nimble hast Are falling stars and hearts thoughts but slow pac'd Thinner then burnt aire flies this soule and she Whom foure new comming and foure parting Suns Had found and left the Mandrakes tenant runnes Thought lesse of change when her firme destiny Confin'd and enjayld her that seem'd so free Into a small blew shell the which a poore Warme bird orespread and sat still evermore Till her uncloath'd child kickt and pick'd it selfe a dore XIX Outcrept a sparrow this soules moving Inne On whose raw armes stiffe feathers now begin As childrens teeth through gummes to breake with paine His flesh is jelly yet and his bones threds All downy a new mantle overspreads A mouth he opes which would as much containe As his late house and the first houre speaks plaine And chirps alowd for meat Meat fit for men His father steales for him and so feeds then One that within a moneth will beate him from his hen XX In this worlds youth wise nature did make hast Things ripened sooner and did longer last Already this hot cocke in bush and tree In field and tent oreflutters his next hen He asks her not who did so tast nor when Nor if his sister or his neece shee be Nor doth she pule for his inconstancie If in her sight he change nor doth refuse The next that calls both liberty doe use Where store is of both kindes both kindes may freely chuse XXI Men till they tooke laws which made freedome lesse Their daughters and their sisters did ingresse Till now unlawfull therefore ill t' was not So jolly that it can move this soule Is The body so free of his kindnesses That selfe preserving it hath now forgot And slackneth so the soules and bodies knot Which tēperance streightens freely on his she friends He blood and spirit pith and marrow spends Ill steward of himself himselfe in three yeares ends XXII Else might he long have liv'd man did not know Of gummie blood which doth in holly grow How to make bird-lime nor how to deceive With faind calls his nets or enwrapping snare The free inhabitants of the Plyant aire Man to beget and woman to conceive Askt not of rootes nor of cock-sparrowes leave Yet chuseth hee though none of these he feares Pleasantly three then streightned twenty yeares To live and to encrease himselfe outweares XXIII This cole with overblowing quench'd and dead The Soule from her too active organs fled T' a brooke a female fishes sandie Roe With the males jelly newly lev'ned was For they intertouched as they did passe
never tast deaths woe But let them sleepe Lord and mee mourne a space For if above all these my sinnes abound 'T is late to aske abundance of thy grace When wee are there here on this lowly ground Teach mee how to repent for that 's as good As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon with thy blood V. If poysonous mineralls and if that tree Whose fruit threw death on else immortall us If lecherous goats if serpents envious Cannot be damn'd Alas why should I bee Why should intent or reason borne in mee Make sinnes else equall in mee more heinous And mercy being easie and glorious To God in his sterne wrath why threatens hee But who am I that dare dispute with thee O God Oh! of thine onely worthy blood And my teares make a heavenly Lethean flood And drowne in it my sinnes blacke memorie That thou remember them some claime as debt I thinke it mercy if thou wilt forget VI. Death be not proud though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull for thou art not soe For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not poore death nor yet canst thou kill mee From rest and sleepe which but thy pictures bee Much pleasure then from thee much more must flow And soonest our best men with thee doe goe Rest of their bones and soules deliverie Thou art slave to Fate chance kings and desperate men And doth with poyson warre and sicknesse dwell And poppie or charmes can make us sleepe as well And better then thy stroake why swell'st thou then One short sleepe past wee wake eternally And death shall be no more death thou shalt die VII Spit in my face you Jewes and pierce my side Buffet and scoffe scourge and crucifie mee For I have sinn'd and sinn'd and onely hee Who could do no iniquitie hath dyed But by my death can not be satisfied My sinnes which passe the Jewes impiety They kill'd once an inglorious man but I Crucifie him daily being now glorified Oh let mee then his strange love still admire Kings pardon but he bore our punishment And Iacob came cloth'd in vile harsh attire But to supplant and with gainfull intent God cloth'd himselfe in vile mans flesh that so Hee might be weake enough to suffer woe VIII Why are wee by all creatures waited on Why doe the prodigall elements supply Life and food to mee being more pure then I Simple and further from corruption Why brook'st thou ignorant horse subjection Why dost thou bull and bore so seelily Dissemble weaknesse and by'one mans stroke die Whose whole kinde you might swallow feed upon Weaker I am woe is mee and worse then you You have not sinn'd nor need be timorous But wonder at a greater wonder for to us Created nature doth these things subdue But their Creator whom sin nor nature tyed For us his Creatures and his foes hath dyed IX What if this present were the worlds last night Marke in my heart O Soule where thou dost dwell The picture of Christ crucified and tell Whether his countenance can thee affright Teares in his eyes quench the amasing light Blood fills his frownes which from his pierc'd head fell And can that tongue adjudge thee unto hell Which pray'd forgivenesse for his foes fierce spight No no but as in my idolatrie I said to all my profane mistresses Beauty of pitty foulnesse onely is A signe of rigour so I say to thee To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd This beauteous forme assumes a pitious minde X. Batter my heart three person'd God for you As yet but knocke breathe shine and seeke to mend That I may rise and stand o'erthrow mee ' and bend Your force to breake blowe burn and make me new I like an usurpt towne to'another due Labour to'admit you but Oh to no end Reason your viceroy in mee mee should defend But is captiv'd and proves weake or untrue Yet dearely'I love you and would be lov'd faine But am betroth'd unto your enemie Divorce mee ' untie or breake that knot againe Take mee to you imprison mee for I Except you'enthral mee never shall be free Nor ever chast except you ravish mee XI Wilt thou love God as he thee then digest My Soule this wholsome meditation How God the Spirit by Angels waited on In heaven doth make his Temple in thy brest The Father having begot a Sonne most blest And still begetting for he ne'r begonne Hath deign'd to chuse thee by adoption Coheire to'his glory ' and Sabbaths endlesse rest And as a robb'd man which by search doth finde His stolne stuffe sold must lose or buy'it againe The Sonne of glory came downe and was slaine Us whom he'had made and Satan stolne to unbinde 'T was much that man was made like God before But that God should be made like man much more XII Father part of his double interest Unto thy kingdome thy Sonne gives to mee His joynture in the knottie Trinitie Hee keepes and gives to me his deaths conquest This Lambe whose death with life the world hath blest Was from the worlds beginning slaine and he Hath made two Wills which with the Legacie Of his and thy kingdome doe thy Sonnes invest Yet such are these laws that men argue yet Whether a man those statutes can fulfill None doth but thy all-healing grace and Spirit Revive againe what law and letter kill Thy lawes abridgement and thy last command Is all but love Oh let this last Will stand EPIGRAMS Hero and Leander BOth rob'd of aire we both lye in one ground Both whom one fire had burnt one water drownd Pyramus and Thisbe Two by themselves each other love and feare Slaine cruell friends by parting have joyn'd here Niobe By childrens births and death I am become So dry that I am now mine owne sad tombe A burnt ship Out of a fired ship which by no way But drowning could be rescued from the flame Some men leap'd forth and ever as they came Neere the foes 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 undermin'd and shot-bruis'd wall A too-bold Captaine perish'd by the fall Whose brave misfortune happiest men envi'd That had a towne for tombe his bones to hide A lame begger I am unable yonder begger cries To stand or moue if he say true hee lies A selfe accuser Your mistris that you follow whores still taxeth you 'T is strange that she should thus confesse it though'it be true A licentious person Thy sinnes and haires may no man equall call For as thy sinnes increase thy haires doe fall Antiquary If in his Studie 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 poore Thou hast good title still Phryne Thy flattering picture Phryne is like thee Onely in this that you both painted be An obscure writer
I Am the Recusant in that resolute state What hurts it mee to be'excommunicate Elegie VIII Natures lay Ideot I taught thee to love And in that sophistrie Oh thou dost prove Too subtile Foole thou didst not understand The mystique language of the eye nor hand Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the aire Of sighes and say this lies this sounds despaire Nor by the'eyes water call a maladie Desperately hot or changing feaverously I had not taught thee then the Alphabet Of flowers how they devisefully being set And bound up might with speechlesse secrecie Deliver arrands mutely and mutually Remember since all thy words us'd to bee To every suitor I if my friends agree Since houshold charmes thy husbands name to teach Were all the love trickes that thy wit could reach And since an houres discourse could scarce have made One answer in thee and that ill arraid In broken proverbs and torne sentences Thou art not by so many duties his That from the worlds Common having sever'd thee Inlaid thee neither to be seene nor see As mine who have with amorous delicacies Refin'd thee'into a blis-full paradise Thy graces and good words my creatures bee I planted knowledge and lifes tree in thee Which Oh shall strangers taste Must I alas Frame and enamell Plate and drinke inglasse Chafe waxe for others seales breake a colts force And leave him then beeing made a ready horse THE STORME To Mr Christopher Brooke THou which art I 't is nothing to be soe Thou which art still thy selfe by these shalt know Part of our passage And a hand or eye By Hilliard drawne is worth an history By a worse painter made and without pride When by thy judgment they are dignifi'd My lines are such 'T is the preheminence Of friendship onely to'impute excellence England to whom we'owe what we be and have Sad that her sonnes did seeke a forraine grave For Fates or Fortunes drifts none can Southsay Honour and misery have one face and way From out her pregnant intrailes sigh'd a winde Which at th'ayres middle marble roome did finde Such strong resistance that it selfe it threw Downeward againe and so when it did view How in the port our fleet deare time did leese Withering like prisoners which lye but for fees Mildly it kist our sailes and fresh and sweet As to a stomack sterv'd whose insides meete Meate comes it came and swole our sailes when wee So joyd as Sara ' her swelling joy'd to see But 't was but so kinde as our countrimen Which bring friends one dayes way and leave them then Then like two mighty Kings which dwelling farre blew Asunder meet against a third to warre The South and West winds joyn'd and as they blew Waves like a rowling trench before them threw Sooner then you read this line did the gale Like shot not fear'd till felt our sailes assaile And what at first was call'd a gust the same Hath now a stormes a non a tempests name Ionas I pitty thee and curse those men Who when the storm rag'd most did wake thee then Sleepe is paines easiest salue and doth fullfill All offices of death except to kill But when I wakt I saw that I saw not I and the Sunne which should teach mee'had forgot East West day night and I could onely say If the world had lasted now it had beene day Thousands our noyses were yet wee ' mongst all Could none by his right name but thunder call Lightning was all our light and it rain'd more Then if the Sunne had drunke the sea before Some coffin'd in their cabbins lye ' equally Griev'd that they are not dead and yet must dye And as sin-burd'ned soules from grave will creepe At the last day some forth their cabbins peepe And tremblingly'aske what newes and doe heare so Like jealous husbands what they would not know Some sitting on the hatches would seeme there With hideous gazing to feare away feare Then note they the ships sicknesses the Mast Shak'd with this ague and the Hold and Wast With a salt dropsie clog'd and all our tacklings Snapping like too-high-stretched treble strings And from our totterd sailes ragges drop downe so As from one hang'd in chaines a yeare agoe Even our Ordinance plac'd for our defence Strive to breake loose and scape away from thence Pumping hath tir'd our men and what 's the gaine Seas into seas throwne we suck in againe Hearing hath deaf'd our saylers and if they Knew how to heare there 's none knowes what to say Compar'd to these stormes death is but a qualme Hell somewhat lightsome and the' Bermuda calme Darknesse lights eldest brother his birth-right Claim'd o'r this world and to heaven hath chas'd light All things are one and that one none can be Since all formes uniforme deformity Doth cover so that wee except God say Another Fiat shall have no more day So violent yet long these furies bee That though thine absence sterve me ' I wish not thee THE CALME OUr storme is past and that storms tyrannous rage A stupid calme but nothing it doth swage The fable is inverted and farre more A blocke afflicts now then a storke before Stormes chafe and soone weare out themselves or us In calmes Heaven laughs to see us languish thus As steady'as I can wish that my thoughts were Smooth as thy mistresse glasse or what shines there The sea is now And as the Iles which wee Seeke when wee can move our ships rooted bee As water did in stormes now pitch runs out As lead when a fir'd Church becomes one spout And all our beauty and our trimme decayes Like courts removing or like ended playes The fighting place now seamens ragges supply And all the tackling is a frippery No use of lanthornes and in one place lay Feathers and dust to day and yesterday Earths hollownesses which the worlds lungs are Have no more winde then the upper valt of aire We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover But meteorlike save that wee move not hover Onely the Calenture together drawes Deare friends which meet dead in great fishes jawes And on the hatches as on Altars lyes Each one his owne Priest and owne Sacrifice Who live that miracle do multiply Where walkers in hot Ovens doe not dye If in despite of these wee swimme that hath No more refreshing then our brimstone Bath But from the sea into the ship we turne Like parboyl'd wretches on the coales to burne Like Bajazet encag'd the sheepheards scoffe Or like-slacke sinew'd Sampson his haire off Languish our ships Now as a Miriade Of Ants durst th' Emperours lov'd snake invade The crawlin Gallies Sea-goales finny chips Might brave our venices now bed-ridde ships Whether a rotten state and hope of gaine Or to disuse mee from the queasie paine Of being belov'd and loving or the thirst Of honour or faire death out pusht mee first I lose my end for here as well as I A desperate may live and a coward die Stagge dogge