Elegy XVI: On His Mistress
- By our first strange and fatal interview,
- By all desires which thereof did ensue,
- By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
- Which my words' masculine persuasive force
- Begot in thee, and by the memory
- Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me,
- I calmly beg: but by thy father's wrath,
- By all pains, which want and divorcement hath,
- I conjure thee, and all the oaths which I
- And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,
- Here I unswear, and overswear them thus,
- Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.
- Temper, O fair Love, love's impetuous rage,
- Be my true Mistress still, not my feigned Page;
- I 'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
- Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind
- Thirst to come back; O if thou die before,
- My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.
- Thy (else Almighty) beauty cannot move
- Rage from the Seas, nor thy love teach them love,
- Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast read
- How roughly he in pieces shivered
- Fair Orithea, wbom he swore he loved.
- Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have proved
- Dangers unurged; feed on this flattery,
- That absent Lovers one in th' other be.
- Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change
- Thy body's habit, nor mind's; be not strange
- To thyself only; all will spy in thy face
- A blushing womanly discovering grace;
- Ricbly clothed Apes are called Apes, and as soon
- Eclipsed as bright we call the Moon the Moon.
- Men of France, changeable chameleons,
- Spitals of diseases, shops of fashions,
- Love's fuellers, and the rightest company
- Of Players, which upon the world's stage be,
- Will quickly know thee, and no less, alas!
- Th' indifferent Italian, as we pass
- His warm land, well content to think thee Page,
- Will hunt thee with such lust, and hideous rage,
- As Lot's fair guests were vexed. But none of these
- Nor spongy hydroptic Dutch shall thee displease,
- If thou stay here. O stay here, for, for thee
- England is only a worthy gallery,
- To walk in expectation, till from thence
- Our greatest King call thee to his presence.
- When I am gone, dream me some happiness,
- Nor let thy looks our long-hid love confess,
- Nor praise, nor dispraise me, nor bless nor curse
- Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy Nurse
- With midnight's startings, crying out—oh, oh
- Nurse, O my love is slain, I saw him go
- O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
- Assailed, fight, taken, stabbed, bleed, fall, and die.
- Augur me better chance, except dread Jove
- Think it enough for me t' have had thy love.
- --oOo-- -