Oh, yes! they love through all this world of ours!
I will not gainsay love, called love forsooth,
I have heard love talked in my early youth,
And since, not so long back but that the flowers
Then gathered, smell still. Mussulmans and Giaours,
Throw kerchiefs at a smile, and have no ruth
For any weeping. Polypheme's white tooth
Slips on the nut if, after frequent showers,
The shell is over-smooth,-- and not so much
Will turn the thing called love, aside to hate
Or else to oblivion. But thou art not such

My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat;
My words the hammers fashioning my desire;
My breast the forge including all the heat;
Love is the fuel which maintains the fire;
My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth,
Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning;
Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth,
In grievous passions my woes still bemoaning;
My eyes with tears against the fire striving,
Whose scorching gleed my heart to cinders turneth,
But with these drops the flame again reviving,

But love whilst that thou mayst be lov'd again,
Now whilst thy May hath fill'd thy lap with flowers;
Now, whilst thy beauty bears without a stain,
Now use thy Summer smiles ere Winter lours.
And whilst thou spread'st unto the rising sun,
The fairest flower that ever saw the light,
Now joy thy time before thy sweet be done;
And, Delia, think thy morning must have night,
And that thy brightness sets at length to west,
When thou wilt close up that which now thou showest,
And think the same becomes thy fading best

To Humor

You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why?
There was a time you told me that you would;
But now again you will the same deny,
If it might please you, would to God you could.
What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not, neither.
Nor love nor hate, how then? What will you do?
What, will you keep a mean then betwixt either,
Or will you love me and yet hate me, too?
Yet serves this not. What next? What other shift?
You will, and will not; what a coil is here.
I see your craft, now I perceive your drift,

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise;
I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
And from my poet's forehead to my heart
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,--
As purply black, as erst to Pindar's eyes
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart,...
The bay-crown's shade, Belovèd, I surmise,
Still lingers on thy curl, it so black!
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;

Restore thy tresses to the golden ore,
Yield Citherea's son those arcs of love,
Bequeath the heav'ns the stars that I adore,
And to th'Orient do thy pearls remove.
Yield thy hands' pride unto th'ivory white,
T'Arabian odors give thy breathing sweet,
Restore thy blush unto Aurora bright,
To Thetis give the honor of thy feet.
Let Venus have thy graces, her resign'd,
And thy sweet voice give back unto the Spheres,
But yet restore thy fierce and cruel mind
To Hyrcan tigers and to ruthless bears.

On Cupid's bow how are my heartstrings bent,
That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same?
When most I glory, then I feel most shame:
I willing run, yet while I run, repent.

My best wits still their own disgrace invent:
My very ink turns straight to Stella's name;
And yet my words, as them my pen doth frame,
Avise themselves that they are vainly spent.

For though she pass all things, yet what is all
That unto me, who fare like him that both
Looks to the skies and in a ditch doth fall?

Farewell, ye coral caves, ye pearly sands,
Ye waving woods that crown yon lofty steep;
Farewell, ye Nereides of the glitt'ring deep,
Ye mountain tribes, ye fawns, ye sylvan bands:
On the bleak rock your frantic minstrel stands,
Each task forgot, save that, to sigh and weep;
In vain the strings her burning fingers sweep,
No more her touch, the Grecian Lyre commands!
In Circe's cave my faithless Phaon's laid,
Her daemons dress his brow with opiate flow'rs;
Or, loit'ring in the brown pomgranate shade,

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one more heinous crime:
O, carve not with the hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen!
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.