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A CONGRATULATION.

Once (quoth she) did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes, deep wounded with a boar,
Deep in the thigh a spectacle of ruth;

See in my thigh (quoth she) here was the sore:
She shewed hers, he saw more wounds than one,
And blushing fled, and left her all alone.

A CONGRATULATION.

HOW can my muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st 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 perusal, stand against thy sight;
For who's so dull, that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth muse, ten times more in worth,
Than those old nine which rhimers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to out-live long date.

If my slight muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

Oh! how thy worth with manners may I sing,
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!

A CONGRATULATION.

Even for this, let us divided live,

And our dear love lose name of single one?
That by this separation I may give

That due to thee, which thou deserv'st alone,
Oh! absence what a torment would'st thou prove,
Were't not that thy sour leisure gave sweet leave
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Who time and thoughts so sweetly dost 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 hast thou then more than thou hadst before;
Know 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 receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;
But yet be blam'd, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robb'ry, gentle thief,
Altho' thou steal 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 spite, yet we must not be foes.

THE GLORY OF BEAUTY.

THE GLORY OF BEAUTY.

AH, wherefore with infection should be live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace itself with his society?

Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeing of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,
Beggar'd of blood, to blush thro' lively veins;
For she hath no exchequer now but his,

And proud of many, lives upon his gains.

O! him she stores, to shew what wealth she had,
In days long since, before these last so bad.

This is his cheek, the map of days, out-worn,
When beauty liv'd and dy'd as flowers do now;
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow:

Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of Sepulchre, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head.

Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay,
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament itself and true,
Making no summer of another's green,
Robbing no old, to dress his beauty new;

LOSS AND GAIN.

And him as for a map doth nature store.
To show false heart what beauty was of yore.

Those parts of thee, that the world's eye doth view,
Want nothing, that the thought of hearts can mend :
All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee thy due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Their outward thus with outward praise is crown'd,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound,
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,

And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;

Then their churl thoughts (altho' their eyes were kind)
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds.
But why? thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The toil is this, that thou dost common grow.

LOSS AND GAIN.

THOSE pretty wrongs that liberty commit,
When I am sometimes absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befit,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won;
Beauteous thou art, and therefore to be assailed,

LOSS AND GAIN.

And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
Ah, me! but yet thou might'st my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there,

Where thou art forc'd to break a twofold truth:
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine by thy beauty being false to me.

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I lov'd her dearly;
That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye,

Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suffering my friend, for my sake, to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss:
Both find each other, and I lose both twain.
And both for my sake lay on me this cross.
But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,
Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.

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