English

Deare, though unconstant, these I send to you
As witnesses, that still my Love is true.
Receive these Lines as Images of Death,
That beare the Infants of my latest breath,
And to my tryumph, though I dye in woe,
With welcome glory, since you will it so,
Especially, my ending is the lesse,
When I Examples see of my distresse.
As Dido , one whose misery was had
By Love, for which shee in Deathes robes was clad;
Yet lost shee lesse then I, for I possest
And love enjoy'd, she lik'd, what was profest

Infernall Spirits listen to my moanes,
From Cavy depths, give hearing to my groanes,
Great Pluto , let thy sad abiding move
With Hellish fires, to flame for fires of love;
Let Charon passe my woes unto thine eares:
His boate if empty they shall load it well,
With tortures great, as are the paines of Hell,
And waightier then the Earth this body beares.

Love among the clouds did hover
Seeking where to spie a lover:
In the Court he none could find,
Townes too meane were in that kind,
At last as he was ripe to crying,
In Forrest woods he found one lying

Under-neath a tree fast sleeping,
Spirit of Love her body keeping,
Where the soule of Cupid lay
Though he higher then did stay,

Pray thee Diana tell mee, is it ill,
As some doe say, thou think'st it is, to love?
Me thinks thou pleased art with what I prove,
Since joyfull light thy dwelling still doth fill.

Thou seemst not angry, but with cheerefull smiles
Beholdst my Passions; chaste indeed thy face
Doth seeme, and so doth shine, with glorious grace;
For other loves, the trust of Love beguiles.

Be bright then still, most chast and cleerest Queene,

Dialogue
Sheapherd, and Sheapherdess
She: Deare how doe thy wining eyes
My sences wholy ty?
Sh 2: Sence of sight wherin most lies
Chang, and variety,
She: Chang in mee?
Sh 2: Choyse in thee some new delights to try;
She: When I chang, or chuse butt thee
Then changed bee mine eyes;
Sh 2: When you absent see nott mee

Stay mine eyes, these floods of teares
Seeme but follies weakely growing,
Babes at nurse such wayling beares,
Frowardnesse such drops bestowing:
But Niobe must shew my fate,
She wept and griev'd her selfe a state.

My sorrowes like her Babes appeare
Daily added by increasing;
She lost them, I loose my Deare,
Not one spar'd from woes ne're ceasing:
She made a rock, heaven drops downe teares,

II

W E shriek to live, but no man ever lives
Till he has rid the ghost of human breath;
We dream to die, but no man ever dies
Till he has quit the road that runs to death.

Silvesta:
Silent woods with desarts shade
Giving peace
Wher all pleasures first ar made
To increase,
Give your favor to my mone
Now my loving time is gone.

Chastity my pleasure is
Folly fled
From hence now I seeke my blis
Cross love dead,
In your shadows I repose
You then love I now have chose.

Musella:
Choise ill made were better left,
Beeing cross
Of such choise to bee bereft

II

Never until our souls are strong enough
To plunge into the crater of the Scheme —
Triumphant in the flash there to redeem
Love's handsel and forevermore to slough,
Like cerements at a played-out masque, the rough
And reptile skins of us whereon we set
The stigma of scared years — are we to get
Where atoms and the ages are one stuff.

Nor ever shall we know the cursed waste
Of life in the beneficence divine
Of starlight and of sunlight and soul-shine

I

Just as I wonder at the twofold screen
Of twisted innocence that you would plait
For eyes that uncourageously await
The coming of a kingdom that has been,
So do I wonder what God's love can mean
To you that all so strangely estimate
The purpose and the consequent estate
Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen.

No, I have not your backward faith to shrink
Lone-faring from the doorway of God's home
To find Him in the names of buried men;