Your words, my friend, (right healthful caustics) blame
My young mind marr'd, whom Love doth windlass so,
That mine own writings like bad servants show
My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame;

That Plato I read for nought, but if he tame
Such doltish gyres; that to my birth I owe
Nobler desires, lest else that friendly foe,
Great Expectation, were a train of shame.

For since mad March great promise made of me,
If now the May of my years much decline,
What can be hoped my harvest time will be?

If Beauty thus be clouded with a frown,
That pity shines no comfort to my bliss,
And vapors of disdain so overfrown,
That my life's light thus wholy darken'd is,
Why should I more molest the world with cries,
The air with sighs, the earth below with tears?
Since I live hateful to those ruthless eyes,
Vexing with untun'd moan her dainty ears;
If I have lov'd her dearer than my breath,
My breath that calls the heav'ns to witness it,
And still must hold her dear till after death;
And if that all this cannot move a whit,

Oh! I could toil for thee o'er burning plains;
Could smile at poverty's disastrous blow;
With thee, could wander 'midst a world of snow,
Where one long night o'er frozen Scythia reigns.
Sever'd from thee, my sick'ning soul disdains
The thrilling thought, the blissful dream to know,
And can'st thou give my days to endless woe,
Requiting sweetest bliss with cureless pains?
Away, false fear! nor think capricious fate
Would lodge a daemon in a form divine!
Sooner the dove shall seek a tyger mate,
Or the soft snow-drop round the thistle twine;

Belovèd, my Belovèd, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sat alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice, but, link by link
Went counting all my chains as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand,--why, thus I drink
Of life's great cup of wonder! Wonderful,
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
With personal act or speech,--nor ever cull
Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white

To the Celestial Numbers

To this our world, to Learning, and to Heav'n,
Three Nines there are, to every one a Nine,
One number of the Earth, the other both divine;
One woman now makes three odd numbers ev'n.
Nine Orders first of Angels be in Heav'n,
Nine Muses do with Learning still frequent:
These with the Gods are ever resident;
Nine Worthy Women to the world were giv'n.
My Worthy One to these Nine Worthies addeth,
And my fair Muse one Muse unto the Nine,
And my good Angel, in my soul divine,

To Time

Stay, speedy Time, behold, before thou pass,
From age to age what thou hast sought to see,
One in whom all the excellencies be,
In whom Heav'n looks itself as in a glass.
Time, look thyself in this tralucent glass,
And thy youth past in this pure mirror see,
As the world's beauty in his infancy,
What is was then, and thou before it was.
Pass on, and to posterity tell this,
Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been;
Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen
In perfect human shape all heav'nly bliss,

If that a loyal heart and faith unfeign'd,
If a sweet languish with a chaste desire,
If hunger-starven thought so long retain'd,
Fed but with smoke, and cherished but with fire,
And if a brow with care's characters painted
Bewrays my love, with broken words half spoken
To her that sits in my thought's temple sainted,
And lays to view my vulture-gnawn heart open,
If I have done due homage to her eyes,
And had my sighs still tending on her name,
If on her love my life and honor lies,
And she th'unkindest maid still scorns the same,

Plain-path'd Experience, th'unlearned's guide,
Her simple followers evidently shows
Sometimes what Schoolmen scarcely can decide,
Nor yet wise Reason absolutely knows.
In making trial of a murther wrought,
If the vile actors of the heinous deed
Near the dead body happily be brought,
Oft it hath been prov'd the breathless corse will bleed.
She's coming near, that my poor heart hath slain,
Long since departed, to the world no more,
The ancient wounds no longer can contain,
But fall to bleeding as they did before.

Muses, which sadly sit about my chair,
Drown'd in the tears extorted by my lines,
With heavy sighs whilst thus I break the air,
Painting my passions in these sad designs,
Since she disdains to bless my happy verse,
The strong-built trophies to her living fame,
Ever henceforth my bosom be your hearse,
Wherein the world shall now entomb her name.
Enclose my music, you poor senseless walls,
Since she is deaf and will not hear my moans,
Soften yourselves with every tear that falls,
Whilst I, like Orpheus, sing to trees and stones,

Delia, these eyes that so admireth thine
Have seen those walls the which ambition rear'd
To check the world, how they entomb'd have lyen
Within themselves, and on them plows have ear'd.
Yet for all that no barbarous hand attain'd
The spoil of fame deserv'd by virtuous men,
Whose glorious actions luckily had gain'd
Th'eternal Annals of a happier pen.
Why then, though Delia fade, let that not move her,
Though Time do spoil her of the fairest veil
That ever yet mortality did cover,
Which shall enstar the needle and the trail.