My faire, if thou wilt register my love,
A World of Volumes shall thereof arise:
Preserve my Teares, and thou thy Selfe shalt prove
A second Floud, downe rayning from mine Eyes:
Note but my Sighes, and thine Eyes shall behold
The Sun-beames smothered with immortall Smoke,
And if by Thee my Prayers may be enrol'd
They Heaven and Earth to pitty shall provoke;
Looke Thou into my brest, and Thou shalt see
Chaste holy Vowes for my Soules sacrifice,
That Soule (sweet Maid) which so hath honor'd Thee,
Erecting Trophies to thy Sacred Eyes,

Yet reade at last the storie of my Woe,
The drerie abstracts of my endlesse Cares,
With my Life's Sorrow interlined so,
Smoak'd with my Sighes, and blotted with my Teares;
The sad Memorialls of my Miseries,
Pen'd in the griefe of mine afflicted Ghost,
My Lives complaint in dolefull Elegies,
With so pure Love, as Time could never boast;
Receive the Incense which I offer here,
By my strong Faith ascending to thy Fame,
My Zeale, my Hope, my Vowes, my Prayse, my Pray'r,
My Soule's Oblations to thy sacred Name:

What do'st thou meane to Cheate me of my Heart
To take all Mine, and give me none againe?
Or have thine Eyes such Magike, or that Art,
That what They get, They ever doe retaine,
Play not the Tyrant, but take some Remorse,
Rebate thy Spleene, if but for Pitties sake;
Or Cruell, if thou can'st not; let us scorse,
And for one piece of Thine, my whole heart take.
But what of Pitty doe I speake to Thee,
Whose Brest is proofe against Complaint or Prayer?
Or can I thinke what my Reward shall be
From that proud Beauty, which was my betrayer?

As in some Countries, farre remote from hence,
The wretched Creature, destined to die,
Having the Judgement due to his Offence,
By Surgeons beg'd, their Art on him to trie,
Which on the Living worke without remorse,
First make incision on each mast'ring Veine,
Then stanch the bleeding, then trans-pierce the Coarse,
And with their Balmes recure the Wounds againe;
Then Poyson, and with Physike him restore:
Not that they feare the hope-lesse Man to kill,
But their Experience to increase the more:
Ev'n so my Mistres workes upon my Ill;

Thou Leaden Braine, which censur'st what I write,
And say'st, my Lines be dull, and doe not move;
I marvell not, thou feel'st not my Delight,
Which never felt'st my fierie touch of Love:
But thou, whose Pen hath like a Packe-Horse serv'd,
Whose Stomack unto Gall hath turn'd thy Food,
Whose Senses, like poore Pris'ners, hunger-starv'd,
Whose Griefe hath parch'd thy Body, dry'd thy Blood;
Thou which hast scorned Life, and hated Death,
And in a moment Mad, Sober, Glad, and Sorrie;
Thou which hast bann'd thy Thoughts, and curst thy Birth,

You cannot love, my prettie Heart, and why?
There was a time, You told Me that you would,
But now againe You will the same denie,
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 doe?
What will You keepe a meane then betwixt either?
Or will You love Me, and yet hate Me too?
Yet serves not This: what next, what other Shift?
You Will, and Will not, what a coyle is here?
I see Your craft, now I perceive Your drift,
And all this while, I was mistaken there:

To this our World, to Learning, and to Heaven,
Three Nines there are, to every one a Nine,
One number of the Earth, the other both Divine,
One Woman now, makes three odde Numbers even;
Nine orders first of Angels be in Heaven,
Nine Muses doe with Learning still frequent,
These with the Gods are ever resident;
Nine worthie Women to the World were given:
My worthy, One to these Nine Worthies addeth,
And my faire Muse, one Muse unto the Nine,
And my good Angell (in my Soule divine)
With one more Order, these nine Orders gladdeth:

Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou passe,
From Age to Age, what thou hast sought to see,
One, in whom all the Excellencies be,
In whom, Heav'n lookes it selfe as in a Glasse:
Time, looke thou too, in this Tralucent Glasse,
And thy Youth past, in this pure Mirrour see,
As the World's Beautie in his Infancie,
What it was then, and thou before it was;
Passe on, and to Posteritie tell this,
Yet see thou tell, but truly, what hath beene:
Say to our Nephewes, that thou once hast seene,
In perfect humane shape, all heav'nly Blisse;

'Mongst all the Creatures in this spacious Round,
Of the Birds kind, the Phœnix is alone,
Which best by you, of living Things, is knowne;
None like to that, none like to you is found:
Your Beautie is the hot and splend'rous Sunne,
The precious Spices be your chaste Desire,
Which being kindled by that heav'nly fire,
Your Life so like the Phœnix's begun;
Your selfe thus burned in that sacred flame,
With so rare sweetnesse all the Heav'ns perfuming,
Againe increasing, as you are consuming,
Onely by dying, borne the very same:

Since to obtaine thee, nothing me will sted,
I have a Med'cine that shall cure my Love,
The powder of her Heart dry'd, when she is dead,
That Gold nor Honour ne'r had pow'r to move;
Mix'd with her Teares, that ne'r her true-Love crost,
Nor at Fifteene ne'r long'd to be a Bride,
Boyl'd with her Sighes, in giving up the Ghost,
That for her late deceased Husband dy'd;
Into the same then let a Woman breathe,
That being chid, did never word replie,
With one thrice-marry'd's Pray'rs, that did bequeath
A Legacie to stale Virginitie.