SELF-FLATTERY OF HER BEAUTY. For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight, My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue. Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery? Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true, And that your love taught it this alchymy! To make of monsters, and things indigest, Such cherubims as your sweet self resemble; Creating every bad a perfect best, As fast as objects to his beams assemble. Oh! 'tis the first, 'tis flatt'ry in my seeing, And my great mind most kindly drinks it up; Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, And to his palate doth prepare the cup. If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin, That mine eye loves it, and doth first begin. Those lines, that I before have writ, do lye, A TRIAL OF LOVE'S CONSTANCY. Can sacred beauty blunt the sharp'st intents, Divert strong minds to th' course of alt'ring things? Might I not then say, now I love you best, A TRIAL OF LOVE'S CONSTANCY. ACCUSE me thus, that I have scanted all, That I have frequent been with unknown minds, Which should transport me farthest from your sight. Like as you make your appetites more keen, A TRIAL OF LOVE'S CONSTANCY. As to prevent our maladies unseen, We sicken, to shun sickness, when we purge: And sick of welfare, found a kind of meekness, The ills that were not, grew to faults assured, But thence I learn, and the fond lesson true, What potions have I drank of SYREN's tears, Distill'd from limbecks, foul as hell within? Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win. What wretched errors hath my heart committed, Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never? How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, In the distraction of this madding fever ? Oh! benefit of ill! now I find true, That better is by evil still made better; And ruin'd love, when it is built anew, Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent. HIS LOVE'S UNKINDNESS. ERROR IN OPINION. A GOOD CONSTRUCTION OF HIS LOVE's UNKINDNESS. THAT you were once unkind befriends me now; my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel. For if you were by my unkindness shaken, ERROR IN OPINION. 'TIS better to be vile than vile esteem'd, YOL. II. UPON THE RECEIPT OF A TABLE-BOOK, &c. Or on my frailties, who are frailer spies; Which in their wills count bad what I think good? No, I am that I am, and they that level At my abuses, reckon up their own; I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain, All men are bad, and in their badness reign. UPON THE RECEIPT OF A TABLE-BOOK FROM HIS MISTRESS. THY gift, thy tables, are within my brain, |