| |
| WHERE is that holy fire, which verse is said | |
| To have? Is that enchanting force decay’d? | |
| Verse that draws nature’s works 1 from nature’s law, | |
| Thee, her best work, to her work cannot draw. | |
| Have my tears quench’d my old poetic fire? | 5 |
| Why quench’d they not as well that of desire? | |
| Thoughts, my mind’s creatures, often are with thee, | |
| But I, their maker, want their liberty. | |
| Only thine image in my heart doth sit, | |
| But that is wax, and fires environ it. | 10 |
| My fires have driven, thine have drawn it hence; | |
| And I am robb’d of picture, heart, and sense. | |
| Dwells with me still mine irksome memory, | |
| Which, both to keep and lose, grieves equally. | |
| That tells me how fair thou art; thou art so fair | 15 |
| As gods, when gods to thee I do compare, | |
| Are graced thereby; and to make blind men see, | |
| What things gods are, I say they’re like to thee. | |
| For if we justly call each silly man | |
| A little world, what shall we call thee then? | 20 |
| Thou art not soft, and clear, and straight, and fair, | |
| As down, as stars, cedars, and lilies are; | |
| But thy right hand, and cheek, and eye, only | |
| Are like thy other hand, and cheek, and eye. | |
| Such was my Phao awhile, but shall be never, | 25 |
| As thou wast, art, and O, mayst thou be ever. | |
| Here lovers swear in their idolatry, | |
| That I am such; but grief discolours me. | |
| And yet I grieve the less, lest grief remove | |
| My beauty, and make me unworthy of thy love. | 30 |
| Plays some soft boy with thee, O, there wants yet | |
| A mutual feeling which should sweeten it. | |
| His chin, a thorny, hairy unevenness | |
| Doth threaten, and some daily change possess. | |
| Thy body is a natural paradise, | 35 |
| In whose self, unmanured, all pleasure lies, | |
| Nor needs perfection; why shouldst thou then | |
| Admit the tillage of a harsh rough man? | |
| Men leave behind them that which their sin shows, | |
| And are as thieves traced, which rob when it snows. | 40 |
| But of our dalliance no more signs there are, | |
| Than fishes leave in streams, or birds in air; | |
| And between us all sweetness may be had, | |
| All, all that nature yields, or art can add. | |
| My two lips, eyes, thighs, differ from thy two | 45 |
| But so, as thine from one another do, | |
| And, O, no more; the likeness being such, | |
| Why should they not alike in all parts touch? | |
| Hand to strange hand, lip to lip none denies; | |
| Why should they breast to breast, or thighs to thighs? | 50 |
| Likeness begets such strange self-flattery, | |
| That touching myself all seems done to thee. | |
| Myself I embrace, and mine own hands I kiss, | |
| And amorously thank myself for this. | |
| Me, in my glass, I call thee; but alas, | 55 |
| When I would kiss, tears dim mine eyes and glass. | |
| O cure this loving madness, and restore | |
| Me to thee, thee my half, my all, my more. | |
| So may thy cheeks’ red outwear scarlet dye, | |
| And their white, whiteness of the Galaxy; | 60 |
| So may thy mighty, amazing beauty move | |
| Envy in all women, and in all men love; | |
| And so be change and sickness far from thee, | |
| As thou by coming near keep’st them from me. | |
