Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.

A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all " hues" in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident;
For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate
That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:
Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:

Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime:
So thou through windows of thine age shall see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

Thus was my love, thus was my Ganymed ,
 (Heavens joy, worlds wonder, natures fairest work,
 In whose aspect Hope and Dispaire doe lurke)
Made of pure blood in whitest snow yshed,
And for sweete Venus only form'd his face,
 And his each member delicately framed,
 And last of all faire Ganymede him named,
His limbs (as their Creatrix) her imbrace.
But as for his pure, spotles, vertuous minde,
 Because it sprung of chaste Dianaes blood,
 (Goddesse of Maides, directresse of all good,)
Hit wholy is to chastity inclinde.

Some talke of Ganimede th' Idalian Boy,
 And some of faire Adonis make their boast
 Some talke of him whom lovely Laeda lost
And some of Ecchoes love that was so coy.
They speake by heere-say, I of perfect truth,
 They partially commend the persons named
 And for them, sweet Encomions I have framed:
I onely t'him have sacrifized my youth.
As for those wonders of antiquitie,
 And those whom later ages have injoy'd,
 (But ah what hath not cruell death destroide?
Death, that envies this worlds felicitie),

Ah no; nor I my selfe: though my pure love
 (Sweete Ganymede ) to thee hath still beene pure,
 And even till my last gaspe shall aie endure,
Could ever thy obdurate beuty move:
Then cease oh Goddesse sonne (for sure thou art,
 A Goddesse sonne that canst resist desire)
 Cease thy hard heart, and entertaine loves fire,
Within thy sacred breast: by Natures art.
And as I love thee more then any Creature,
 (Love thee, because thy beautie is divine:
 Love thee, because my selfe, my soule is thine:
Wholie devoted to thy lovelie feature),

SEVEN TIMES THREE. LOVE .

I LEANED out of window, I smelt the white clover,
Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate;
" Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover —
Hush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait
Till I listen and hear
If a step draweth near,
For my love he is late!

" The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer,
A cluster of stars hangs like fruit in the tree,

Blind loving wrestling touch! Sheathed hooded sharptoothed touch!
Did it make you ache so leaving me?

Parting tracked by arriving . . . . perpetual payment of the perpetual loan,
Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.

Sprouts take and accumulate . . . . stand by the curb prolific and vital,
Landscapes projected masculine full-sized and golden.

To my louing and deere mother, the citly of Hereford.

E PIG . 281.

H EREFORDE , haue with thee! nay I cannot haue
That which thou hast; for thou hast mirth and ease,—
I say not slouth, lest I should thee depraue;
Yet ease can haue no paine that can displease
Hadst thou lesse ease thy mirth would bee the more;
For painefull hands in fine make pleasant harts.
But idle hands make harts to labour sore
With sorrow that annoyes the other parts
But in thy bozome thou hast many heads