What can I do, I love you so much!
As you leave, I cling to you.
I am to you as the forest bird to its mate:
getting to perch together with you,
but not to fly with you.

Live here, great Heart; and love and dy and kill;
And bleed and wound; and yeild and conquer still.
Let this immortall life where'er it comes
Walk in a crowd of loves and MARTYRDOMES.
Let mystick DEATHS wait on't; and wise soules be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! shew here thy art,
Upon this carcase of a hard, cold, heart;
Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large Books of day,
Combin'd against this BREAST at once break in
And take away from me my self and sin;

By nature I love to dress my hair,
combing it carefully, arranging it neatly about my face.
As I hold the mirror in my hand,
a thousand times I gaze at my own image!
But, alas! my hand grows weary of this,
and so I must try to find:
a mirror-stand

Yesterday, as I went down to the bridge at the river,
I was stared at by all the passers-by.
The flowers were sparse—I had no place to hide,
and so they all could see my newly made-up face!
Every moment was filled with embarrassment,
and so I must try to find:

Fair is my Love that feeds among the lilies,
The lilies growing in that pleasant garden
Where Cupid's Mount that well belovid hill is,
And where that little god himself is warden.

See where my Love sits in the beds of spices,
Beset all round with camphor, myrrh, and roses,
And interlaced with curious devices
Which her apart from all the world incloses!
There doth she tune her lute for her delight,
And with sweet music makes the ground to move,
Whilst I, poor I, do sit in heavy plight,
Wailing alone my unrespected love;

If love be like the flower that in the night,
When darkness drowns the glory of the skies,
Smells sweet, and glitters in the gazer's sight,
But when the gladsome sun begins to rise,
And he that views it, would the same embrace,
It withereth, and loseth all his grace:

Why do I love and like the cursed tree,
Whose buds appear, but fruit will not be seen:
Why do I languish for the flower I see,
Whose root is rot, when all the leaves be green?
In such a case it is a point of skill
To follow chance, and love against my will.

PROLOGUE

When first our poet set himself to write,
Like a young bridegroom on his wedding-night
He laid about him, and did so bestir him,
His Muse could never lie in quiet for him:
But now his honeymoon is gone and past,
Yet the ungrateful drudgery must last,
And he is bound, as civil husbands do,
To strain himself, in complaisance to you;
To write in pain, and counterfeit a bliss
Like the faint smackings of an after-kiss.
But you, like wives ill-pleas'd, supply his want:
Each writing Monsieur is a fresh gallant;

Celimena, of my heart
None shall e'er bereave you,
If with your good leave I may
Quarrel with you once a day,
I will never leave you.

c:Passion's but an empty name
Where respect is wanting:
Damon, you mistake your aim;
Hang your heart, and burn your flame,
If you must be ranting.

d:Love as dull and muddy is
As decaying liquor:
Anger sets it on the lees,
And refines it by degrees,
Till it works it quicker.

c:Love by quarrels to beget
Wisely you endeavor,
With a grave physician's wit,

My love, like the vast majority,
knows nothing about poetry
With my poor poems she does
simply incredible things:
she irons them, darns them, fries them,
she even beats them out with a broom
My love, like the vast majority,
lives touching poetry.

When maidens are young, and in their spring,
Of pleasure, of pleasure, let 'mdash take their full swing,
——Full swing, full swing,
And love, and dance, and play, and sing.
For Silvia, believe it, when youth is done,
There 's nought but hum-drum, hum-drum, hum-drum,
There 's nought but hum-drum, hum-drum, hum-drum.

Then Silvia be wise, be wise, be wise,
The painting and dressing for a while are supplies,
——And may surprise—
But when the fire 's going out in your eyes,
It twinkles, it twinkles, it twinkles, and dies,

A curse upon that faithless maid,
Who first her sex's liberty betrayed;
Born free as man to love and range,
Till nobler nature did to custom change.
Custom, that dull excuse for fools.
Who think all virtue to consist in rules.

From love our fetters never sprung,
That smiling god, all wanton, gay and young.
Shows by his wings he cannot be
Confined to a restless slavery;
But here and there at random roves,
Not fixed to glitt'ring courts or shady groves.

Then she that constancy professed,
Was but a well dissembler at the best;