But finding nature their request denies,
This to each other mutually they crave;
That since the one cannot the other be,
That eyes could think of that my heart could see.
TO ADMIRATION
XXXIV
Marvel not, love, though I
thy power admire,
Ravished a world
beyond the farthest thought,
And knowing more
than ever hath been taught,
That I am only starved in
my desire.
Marvel not, love, though I
thy power admire,
Aiming at things
exceeding all perfection,
To wisdom’s
self to minister direction,
That I am only starved in
my desire.
Marvel not, love, though I
thy power admire,
Though my conceit
I further seem to bend
Than possibly
invention can extend,
And yet am only starved in
my desire.
If thou wilt wonder,
here’s the wonder, love,
That this to me
doth yet no wonder prove.
TO MIRACLE
XXXV
Some misbelieving and profane
in love,
When I do speak
of miracles by thee,
May say that thou
art flattered by me,
Who only write my skill in
verse to prove
See miracles, ye unbelieving,
see!
A dumb-born Muse
made to express the mind,
A cripple hand
to write, yet lame by kind,
One by thy name, the other
touching thee.
Blind were mine eyes, till
they were seen of thine;
And mine ears
deaf by thy fame healed be;
My vices cured
by virtues sprung from thee;
My hopes revived which long
in grave had lien.
All unclean thoughts,
foul spirits, cast out in me,
Only by virtue
that proceeds from thee.
CUPID CONJURED
XXXVI
Thou purblind boy, since thou
hast been so slack
To wound her heart whose eyes
have wounded me
And suffered her to glory
in my wrack,
Thus to my aid I lastly conjure
thee!
By hellish Styx,
by which the Thund’rer swears,
By thy fair mother’s
unavoided power,
By Hecate’s names, by
Proserpine’s sad tears,
When she was wrapt to the
infernal bower!
By thine own loved
Psyche, by the fires
Spent on thine altars flaming
up to heaven,
By all true lovers’
sighs, vows, and desires,
By all the wounds that ever
thou hast given;
I conjure thee
by all that I have named,
To make her love,
or, Cupid, be thou damned!
XXXVII
Dear, why should you command
me to my rest,
When now the night doth summon
all to sleep?
Methinks this time becometh
lovers best;
Night was ordained together
friends to keep.
How happy are
all other living things,
Which though the day disjoin
by several flight,