class="i2">Thou, Love, taught’st me by making me
Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,
To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.
The Funeral
Whoever Comes to shroud me, do not harm,
Nor question much,
That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm;
The mystery, the sign you must not touch;
For ’tis my outward soul,
Viceroy to that, which unto heaven being gone,
Will leave this to control
And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.
For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall
Through every part
Can tie those parts, and make me one of all,
Those hairs which upward grew, and strength and art
Have from a better brain,
Can better do ’t; except she meant that I
By this should know my pain,
As prisoners then are manacled, when they’re condemn’d to die.
Whate’er she meant by it, bury it with me,
For since I am
Love’s martyr, it might breed idolatry,
If into other hands these relics came.
As ’twas humility
To afford to it all that a soul can do,
So ’tis some bravery,
That since you would have none of me, I bury some of you.
The Blossom
Little think’st thou, poor flower,
Whom I’ve watch’d six or seven days,
And seen thy birth, and seen what every hour
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
Tomorrow find thee fallen, or not at all.
Little think’st thou, poor heart,
That labourest yet to nestle thee,
And think’st by hovering here to get a part
In a forbidden or forbidding tree,
And hopest her stiffness by long siege to bow,
Little think’st thou,
That thou tomorrow, ere that sun doth wake,
Must with this sun and me a journey take.
But thou which lovest to be
Subtle to plague thyself, wilt say,
Alas! if you must go, what’s that to me?
Here lies my business, and here I will stay;
You go to friends, whose love and means present
Various content
To your eyes, ears, and taste, and every part;
If then your body go, what need your heart?
Well then, stay here; but know,
When thou hast stay’d and done thy most,
A naked thinking heart, that makes no show,
Is to a woman but a kind of ghost.
How shall she know my heart; or having none,
Know thee for one?
Practice may make her know some other part;
But take my word, she doth not know a heart.
Meet me at London, then,
Twenty days hence, and thou shalt see
Me fresher, and more fat, by being with men,
Than if I had stay’d still with her and thee.
For God’s sake, if you can, be you so too;
I will give you
There to another friend, whom we shall find
As glad to have my body as my mind.
The Primrose, Being at Montgomery Castle Upon the Hill, on Which It Is Situate
Upon this Primrose hill,
Where, if heaven would distil
A shower of rain, each several drop might go
To his own primrose, and grow manna so;
And where their form, and their infinity
Make a terrestrial galaxy,
As the small stars do in the sky;
I walk to find a true love; and I see
That ’tis not a mere woman, that is she,
But must or more or less than woman be
Yet know I not, which flower
I wish; a six, or four;
For should my truelove less than woman be,
She were scarce anything; and then, should she
Be more than woman, she would get above
All thought of sex, and think to move
My heart to study her, and not to love.
Both these were monsters; since there must reside
Falsehood in woman, I could more abide,
She were by art, than nature falsified.
Live, primrose, then, and thrive
With thy true number five;
And, woman, whom this flower doth represent,
With this mysterious number be content;
Ten is the farthest number; if half ten
Belongs unto each woman, then
Each woman may take half us men;
Or—if this will not serve their turn—since all
Numbers are odd, or even, and they fall
First into five, women may take us all.
The Relic
When my grave is broke up again
Some second guest to entertain,
—For graves have learn’d that woman-head,
To be to more than one a bed—
And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will not he let us alone,
And think that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls at the last busy day
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?
If this fall in a time, or land,
Where mass-devotion doth command,
Then he that digs us up will bring
Us to the bishop or the king,
To make us relics; 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 we harmless lovers wrought.
First we loved well and faithfully,
Yet knew not what we loved, nor why;
Difference of sex we never knew,
No more than guardian angels do;
Coming and going we
Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;
Our hands ne’er touch’d the seals,
Which nature, injured by late law, sets free.
These miracles we did; but now alas!
All measure, and all language, I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.
The Damp
When I am dead, and doctors know not why,
And my friends’ curiosity
Will have me cut up to survey each part,
When they shall find your picture in my heart,
You think a sudden damp of love
Will thorough all their senses move,
And work on them as me, and so prefer
Your murder to the name of massacre,
Poor victories; but if you dare be brave,
And pleasure in your conquest have,
First kill th’ enormous giant, your Disdain;
And let th’ enchantress Honour, next be slain;
And like a Goth or Vandal rise,
Deface records and histories
Of your own arts and triumphs over men,
And without
