Let me confefs that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So fhall thofe blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a feparable spite,
Which though it alter not love's fole effect,
Yet doth it steal fweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
bewailed guilt fhould do thee fhame; Nor thou with publick kindness honour me, Unless thou take that honour from thy name: But do not fo; I love thee in fuch fort, As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.
As a decrepit father takes delight
To fee his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of thefe all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor defpis'd,
Whilft that this fhadow doth fuch fubftance give,
That I in thy abundance am fuffic'd,
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee;
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!
How can my mufe want subject to invent,
While thou doft breathe, that pour'ft into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
Oh give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perufal, ftand against thy fight,
For who's fo dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself doft give invention light?
Be thou the tenth mufe, ten times more in worth
Than thofe old nine, which rhimers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to out-live long date.
If my flight mufe do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
O how thy worth with manners may I fing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?
And what is't but mine own, when I praise thee?
Even for this let us divided live,
And our dear love lofe name of fingle one,
That by this feparation I may give
That due to thee, which thou deserv'ft alone.
O abfence, what a torment would'st thou prove,
Were it not thy four leifure gave fweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
(Which time and thoughts fo fweetly doth deceive,)
And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
By praising him here, who doth hence remain.
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What haft thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou may'st true love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receiveft,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou useft;
But yet be blam'd, if thou thyfelf deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou fteal thee all my poverty;
And
yet love knows, it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with fpites; yet we must not be foes.
Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime abfent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,
For ftill temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be affail'd;
And when a woman wooes, what woman's fon
Will fourly leave her till she have prevail'd.
Ah me! but yet thou might'st, my sweet, forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy ftraying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forc'd to break a two-fold truth;
Her's, by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine, by thy beauty being falfe to me.
That thou haft her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be faid I lov'd her dearly;
That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
A lofs in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excufe ye :-
Thou doft love her, because thou know'ft I love her;
And for my fake even fo doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend for my fake to approve her.
If I lofe thee, my lofs is my love's gain,
And lofing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my fake lay on me this cross:
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;
Sweet flattery!-then she loves but me alone.
When most I wink, then do mine eyes beft fee,
For all the day they view things unrefpected;
But when I fleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whofe fhadow fhadows doth make bright,
How would thy fhadow's form form happy thow
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unfeeing eyes thy fhade shines fo?
How would (I fay) mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy fleep on fightless eyes doth stay?
All days are nights to fee, till I fee thee,
And nights, bright days, when dreams do fhow thee me.
If the dull fubftance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then, despite of space, I would be brought
From limits far remote, where thou doft stay.
No matter then, although my foot did stand
Upon the fartheft earth remov'd from thee,
For nimble thought can jump both fea and land,
As foon as think the place where he would be.
But ah! thought kills me, that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, fo much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leifure with my moan;
Receiving nought by elements fo flow
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.
The other two, flight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide ;
The first my thought, the other my defire,
These prefent-abfent with swift motion flide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embaffy of love to thee,
My life being made of four, with two alone,
Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;
Until life's compofition be recured
By those swift meffengers return'd from thee,
Who even but now come back again, affured
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
I send them back again, and straight go fad.
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