Were her first years the golden age? that's true; But now she's gold oft tried, and ever new. That was her torrid and inflaming time;

This is her habitable tropic clime.

Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence,

He in a fever wishes pestilence.

Call not these wrinkles graves: if graves they

were,

They were Love's graves; or else he is no

where.

Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit

Vowed to this trench, like an anachorit.

And here, till her's, which must be his death,

come,

He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb. Here dwells he; though he sojourn everywhere In progress, yet his standing-house is here; Here, where still evening is, not noon nor night, Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight.

In all her words, unto all hearers fit,

You may at revels, you at councils sit. This is love's timber, youth his underwood; There he, as wine in June, enrages blood, Which then comes seasonablest, when our taste And appetite to other things is past.

Xerxes's strange Lydian love, the platane tree, Was loved for age, none being so old as she, Or else because, being young, nature did bless Her youth with age's glory, barrenness.

If we love things long sought, age is a thing, Which we are fifty years in compassing; If transitory things, which soon decay,

Age must be loveliest at the latest day. But name not winter-faces, whose skin's slack; Lank as an unthrift's purse; but a soul's*

sack;

Whose eyes seek light within, for all here's shade; Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out than

made;

Whose every tooth to a several place is gone
To vex the soul at resurrection;

Name not these living death-heads unto me,
For these not ancient but antique be:
I hate extremes: yet I had rather stay
With tombs than cradles, to wear out the day
Since such love's natural station is, may still
My love descend, and journey down the hill;
Not panting after growing beauties; so
I shall ebb on with them, who homeward go.

*Var. fool's. Ed. 1635.

ELEGY X.

THE DREAM.

IMAGE of her, whom I love more than she,
Whose fair impression in my faithful heart
Makes me her medal, and makes her love me,

As kings do coins, to which their stamps impart The value: go, and take my heart from hence, Which now is grown too great and good for

me.

Honors oppress weak spirits, and our sense

Strong objects dull; the more, the less we see. When you are gone, and reason gone with you, Then Phantasy is queen, and soul, and all; She can present joys meaner than you

Convenient, and more proportional. So if I dream I have you, I have you; For all our joys are but fantastical.

do;

And so I 'scape the pain, for pain is true;

And sleep, which locks up sense, doth lock out

all.

After a such fruition I shall wake,

And, but the waking, nothing shall repent; And shall to Love more thankful sonnets make, Than if more honor, tears, and pains were spent. But dearest heart, and dearer image, stay, Alas! true joys at best are dreams enough;

ELEGIES.

Though you stay here, you pass too fast a
For even at first life's taper is a snuff.
Filled with her love, may I be rather gro
Mad with much heart, than idiot with i

ELEGY XI.

UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESS'S CHAIN,
WHICH HE MADE SATISFACTION.

Nor, that in color it was like thy hair, Armlets of that thou may'st still let me wear Nor, that thy hand it oft embraced and kist, For so it had that good, which oft I mist; Nor for that silly old morality, That as these links were knit, our loves should Mourn I, that I thy sevenfold chain have lost. Nor for the luck's sake; but the bitter cost. ()! shall twelve righteous angels, which as yet No leaven of vile solder did admit, Nor yet by any way have strayed or gone From the first state of their creation ; Angels, which heaven commanded to provide All things to me, and be my faithful guide; To gain new friends, to appease old * enemies: * Fr. great. EL 1635

To comfort my soul, when I lie or rise;

Shall these twelve innocents by thy severe Sentence (dread judge) my sin's great burden bear?

Shall they be damned, and in the furnace thrown,
And punished for offences not their own?

They save not me, they do not ease my pains,
When in that hell they 're burnt and tied in chains :
Were they but crowns of France, I cared not,
For most of them their country's natural rot,
I think, possesseth, they come here to us,
So pale, so lame, so lean, so ruinous;

And howsoe'er French kings most. Christian be,
Their crowns are circumcised most Jewishly;
Or were they Spanish stamps still travelling,
That are become as catholic as their king,
Those unlickt bear-whelps, unfiled pistolets,
That (more than cannon-shot) avails or lets,
Which, negligently left unrounded, look
Like many-angled figures in the book
Of some dread conjurer, that would enforce
Nature, as these do justice, from her course,
Which, as the soul quickens head, feet, and heart,
As streams like veins run through the earth's
every part,

Visit all countries, and have slyly made

Gorgeous France ruined; ragged and decayed, Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day: And mangled seventeen-headed Belgia: