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| IF, as mine is, thy life a slumber be, | |
| Seem, when thou read’st these lines, to dream of me. | |
| Never did Morpheus nor his brother wear | |
| Shapes so like those shapes, whom they would appear, | |
| As this my letter is like me, for it | 5 |
| Hath my name, words, hand, feet, heart, mind and wit. | |
| It is my deed of gift of me to thee; | |
| It is my will, myself the legacy. | |
| So thy retirings I love, yea envy, | |
| Bred in thee by a wise melancholy, | 10 |
| That I rejoice, that unto where thou art, | |
| Though I stay here, I can thus send my heart, | |
| As kindly as any enamour’d patient | |
| His picture to his absent love hath sent. | |
| All news I think sooner reach thee than me; | 15 |
| Havens are heavens, and ships wing’d angels be, | |
| The which both gospel and stern threatenings bring. | |
| Guiana’s harvest is nipp’d in the spring, | |
| I fear; and with us, methinks, Fate deals so | |
| As with the Jews’ guide God did; He did show | 20 |
| Him the rich land, but barr’d his entry in; | |
| Our slowness is our punishment and sin. | |
| Perchance, these Spanish businesses being done, | |
| Which, as the earth between the moon and sun, | |
| Eclipse the light which Guiana would give, | 25 |
| Our discontinued hopes we shall retrieve. | |
| But if—as all th’ All must—hopes smoke away, | |
| Is not almighty virtue an India? | |
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| If men be worlds, there is in every one | |
| Something to answer in some proportion | 30 |
| All the world’s riches; and in good men this, | |
| Virtue, our form’s form and our soul’s soul, is. | |
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