Did more than half a blush dis- That consummatum est was said! No hallowed oils, no grains I To live without him, liked it not, How should I love my best? What though my love unto that height be grown, That taking joy in you alone I utterly this world detest, Should I not love it yet as th' only place Where beauty hath his perfect grace, But I beauties despise; Giving and showing form and degree Your beauty, their perfection And top, doth rise? But ev'n myself I hate, So far my love is from the least delight Senseless of any happy state; Yet may I not with justest reason fear Thus unresolved still, Although world, life, nay, what is fair beside, Methinks I love not to my fill; Yet if a greater love you can devise, Another [Madrigal] Dear, when I did from you remove, Fixed in the center of my heart, And lodgëd so, how can it change, Elegy over a tomb Must I then see, alas, eternal night And closing all those beams, which once did rise So radiant and bright That light and heat in them to us did prove 10 20 10 Oh, if you did delight no more to stay But rather chose an endless heritage, Where all the beauties that those ashes owed Doth the sun now his light with yours renew? Did you restore unto the sky and air Have you vouchsafed to flowers since your death Had not heav'n's lights else in their houses slept, Must not the sky and air have else conspired, Must not each flower else the earth could breed, But thus enriched may we not yield some cause That must have changed the course they held before, And broke their proper laws, Had not your beauties giv'n this second birth To heaven and earth. Tell us, for oracles must still ascend For those that crave them at your tomb, Tell us where are those beauties now become, And what they now intend; Tell us, alas, that cannot tell our grief, Or hope relief. An ode upon a question moved, Whether love should continue forever? Having interred her infant-birth, The wat'ry ground that late did mourn Was strewed with flowers for the return Of the wished bridegroom of the earth. The well-accorded birds did sing 10 20 30 Their hymns unto the pleasant a sweet consorted Did welcome in the cheerful spring; To which soft whistles of the wind, The season with their love did With so much faith on either The pleasures of the time unite, To give a triumph to their love, They stayed at last, and on the grass Reposëd so as o'er his breast She bowed her gracious head to rest, Such a weight as no burden was. While over either's compassed waist Their folded arms were sO As if in straitest bonds 30 his Worst counsel should divide us here, His terrors could not make me fear To come where your loved presence is; Only if love's fire with the breath Of life be kindled, I doubt 50 With our last air 'twill be breathed out, And quenched with the cold of death; en That if affection be a line Which is closed up in our last hour, Oh, how 'twould grieve me any power They suffered for joys they did taste. Long their fixed eyes to heaven Could force so dear a love as His greatness in his works Think you that he excludeth bent mine! |