THE BAIT.

COME, live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river whisp'ring run, Warm'd by thine eyes more than the Sun: And there th' enamour'd fish will play, Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,

Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou to be so seen art loth

By Sun or Moon, thou darken'st both;
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or winding net:

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors sleave silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes:

146

Yet no

No thee, thou need'st no such deceit, The thou thyself art thine own bait; Tat fish, that is not catch'd thereby, Anas! is wiser far than I.

A

1

THE BROKEN HEART.

HE is stark mad, whoever says

That he hath been in love an hour,

Yet not that love so soon decays,

But that it can ten in less space devour;

Who will believe me, if I swear

That I have had the plague a year?

Who would not laugh at me, if I should say,
I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

Ah! what a trifle is a heart,

If once into Love's hands it come!

All other griefs allow a part

To other griefs, and ask themselves but some. They come to us, but us Love draws,

He swallows us and never chaws:

By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die ;

He is the tyrant pike, and we the fry.

If 't were not so, what did become

Of my heart, when I first saw thee?

I brought a heart into the room,

But from the room I carried none with me:

If it had gone to thee, I know

Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me: but Love, alas,

At one first blow did shiver it as glass.
VOL. IV.

N

144

COMF

And

Of g

DONNE.

othing can to nothing fall,

r any place be empty quite, refore I think my breast hath all

hose pieces still, though they do not unite: d now as broken glasses show

hundred lesser faces, so

My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, WiBut after one such love can love no more.

I LONG to talk with some old lover's ghost,
Who dy'd before the god of love was born:
I cannot think that he, who then lov'd most,
Sunk so low, as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produc'd a destiny,
And that vice-nature custom lets it be;
I must love her that loves not me.

Sure they, which made him god, meant not so much,
Nor he in his young godhead practis'd it.
But when an even flame two hearts did touch,
His office was indulgently to fit

Actives to passives, correspondency

Only his subject was; it cannot be
Love, till I love her that loves me.

But every modern god will now extend
His vast prerogative as far as Jove,
To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,
All is the purlieu of the god of love.

Oh, were we waken'd by this tyranny
T'ungod this child again, it could not be
I should love her who loves not me.

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I

As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love may make me leave loving, or might try
A deeper plague, to make her love me too,
Which, since she loves before, I'm loath to see;
Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,
If she whom I love should love me.

LOVE'S DIET.

To what a cumbersome unwieldiness
And burthenous corpulence my love had grown;
But that I did, to make it less,
And keep it in proportion,

Give it a diet, made it feed upon,

That which love worst endures, discretion.

Above one sigh a-day I allow'd him not,
Of which my fortune and my faults had part;
And if sometimes by stealth he got

A she-sigh from my mistress' heart,

And thought to feast on that, I let him see
'Twas neither very sound, nor meant to me.

If he wrung from me a tear, I brin'd it so
With scorn or shame, that him it nourish'd not;
If he suck'd her's, I let him know

'Twas not a tear which he had got.

His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;

Her eyes, which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.

Whatever she would dictate, I writ that,
But burnt my letters, which she writ to me;
And if that favour made him fat,

I said, "If any title be

Convey'd by this, ah! what doth it avail
To be the fortieth man in an entail?"

Thus I reclaim'd my buzzard love to fly

At what, and when, and how, and where I chose; Now negligent of sport I lie,

And now, as other falc'ners use,

I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep, And the game kill'd, or lost, go talk or sleep.

THE WILL.

BEFORE I sign my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies; I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ;
If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;
My tongue to Fame; t' ambassadors mine ears;
To women, or the sea, my tears;

Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore,

By making me love her who 'd twenty more, That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give;
My truth to them who at the court do live;