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Did more than half a blush dis- That consummatum est was said!

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No hallowed oils, no grains I To live without him, liked it not,

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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,
And is possessed?

But I beauties despise;
You, universal beauty seem to me,

Giving and showing form and degree
To all the rest in your fair eyes,
Yet should I not love them as parts whereon

Your beauty, their perfection

And top, doth rise?

But ev'n myself I hate,

So far my love is from the least delight
That at my very self I spite,

Senseless of any happy state;

Yet may I not with justest reason fear
How, hating hers, I truly her
Can celebrate?

Thus unresolved still,

Although world, life, nay, what is fair beside,
I cannot for your sake abide,

Methinks I love not to my fill;

Yet if a greater love you can devise,
In loving you some otherwise,
Believe 't, I will.

Another [Madrigal]

Dear, when I did from you remove,
I left my joy, but not my love-
That never can depart;
It neither higher can ascend,
Nor lower bend;

Fixed in the center of my heart,
As in his place,

And lodgëd so, how can it change,
Or you grow strange?
Those are earth's properties, and base.
Each where, as the bodies divine,
Heav'n's lights and you to me will shine.

Elegy over a tomb

Must I then see, alas, eternal night
Sitting upon those fairest eyes,

And closing all those beams, which once did rise

So radiant and bright

That light and heat in them to us did prove
Knowledge and love?

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20

10

Oh, if you did delight no more to stay
Upon this low and earthly stage,

But rather chose an endless heritage,
Tell us at least, we pray,

Where all the beauties that those ashes owed
Are now bestowed.

Doth the sun now his light with yours renew?
Have waves the curling of your hair?

Did you restore unto the sky and air
The red, and white, and blue?

Have you vouchsafed to flowers since your death
That sweetest breath?

Had not heav'n's lights else in their houses slept,
Or to some private life retired?

Must not the sky and air have else conspired,
And in their regions wept?

Must not each flower else the earth could breed,
Have been a weed?

But thus enriched may we not yield some cause
Why they themselves lament no more?

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

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20

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Their hymns unto the pleasant
time,
And in
chime

a

sweet consorted

Did welcome in the cheerful spring;

To which soft whistles of the wind,

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The season with their love did With so much faith on either

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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
composed

As if in straitest bonds
closed

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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!

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alone,

love?

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