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THE FORCE OF LOVE.

THE FORCE OF LOVE.

BEING your slave, what should I do, but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire,
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do till you require:

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you;
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu,
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose;
But like a sad slave stay, and think of nought,
Save where you are : how happy you make those!
So true a fool is love, that in your will,
(Tho' you do any thing) he thinks no ill.

That God forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought controul your times of pleasure;
Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure.
O let me suffer (being at your beck)

Th' imprison'd absence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,

Without accusing you of injury!

Be where you list, your charter is so strong,

That

you yourself may privilege your time To what you will; to you it doth belong. Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

THE BEAUTY OF NATURE.---LOVE'S CRUELTY.

I am to wait, tho' waiting so be hell:

Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

THE BEAUTY OF NATURE.

IF there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd;
Which labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child?
O! that record could with a backward look,
E'en of five hundred courses of the sun;
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mine at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we're mended, or where better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.

O! sure I am, the wits of former days,
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

LOVE'S CRUELTY.

FROM fairest creatures we desire encrease
That thereby beauty's rose may never die;
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender air might bear his memory.

LOVE'S CRUELTY.

But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel;
Making a famine where abundance lies:
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding :
Pity the world, or else this glutton be

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gaz'd on now,
Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held:
Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;

Το

say within thy own deep-sunken eyes,
Where an all-eating shame and thriftless praise
How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer, this fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,
Proving his beauty by succession thine?

This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm, when thou feel'st it cold.

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another;

YOUTHFUL GLORY.

Whose fresh repair, if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother:
For where is she so fair, whose un-ear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond, will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
So thou thro' windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remember not to be;
Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

YOUTHFUL GLORY.

O THAT you were yourself! but, love, you are
No longer yours, then you yourself here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty, which you hold in lease,
Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who let so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day,

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

YOUTHFUL GLORY.

O! none but unthrifts; dear my love, you know You had a father, let your son say so.

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy;
But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind;
Or say, with princes if it shall go well,
By aught predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And constant stars; in them I read such art,
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself, to store thou would'st convert :
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,

Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date

When I consider, every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment; That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows, Whereon the stars in secret influence comment: When I perceive, that men as plants encrease Cheared and check'd even by the self-same sky: Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear the brave state out of memory: Then the conceit of this inconstant stay, Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful time debateth with decay, To change your day of youth to sullied night;

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