The Third and Fourth Booke of Ayres - The Third Booke

Be thou then my Beauty named, 
  Since thy will is to be mine ; 
For by that I am enflamed 
  Which on all alike doth shine ; 
Others may the light admire, 
I only truly feel the fire. 

But if lofty titles move thee, 
  Challenge then a Sovereign's place ; 
Say I honour when I love thee, 
  Let me call thy kindness Grace : 
State and Love things diverse be, 
Yet will we teach them to agree. 

Or if this be not sufficing, 
  Be thou styled my Goddess then : 
I will love thee, sacrificing ; 
  In thine honour hymns I'll pen : 
To be thine, what canst thou more ? 
I'll love thee, serve thee, and adore. 

Fire that must flame is with apt fuel fed,
Flowers that will thrive in sunny soil are bred:
How can a heart feel heat that no hope finds?
Or can he love on whom no comfort shines?

Fair, I confess there’s pleasure in your sight;
Sweet, you have power, I grant, of all delight;
But what is all to me if I have none?
Churl that you are t’enjoy such wealth alone!

Prayers move the heavens but find no grace with you,
Yet in your looks a heavenly form I view;
Then will I pray again, hoping to find,
As well as in your looks, heaven in your mind.

Saint of my heart, queen of my life and love,
O let my vows thy loving spirit move!
Let me no longer mourn through thy disdain,
But with one touch of grace cure all my pain!

Oft have I sigh'd for him that hears me not:
Who absent hath both love and me forgot.
O yet I languish still, through his delay.
Days seem as years, when wish'd friends break their day.

Had he but lov'd as common lovers use,
His faithless stay some kindness would excuse:
O yet I languish still, still constand mourn
For him that can break vows, but not return.

Maydes are simple, some men say,
They, forsooth, will trust no men.
But should they mens wils obey,
Maides were very simple then.

Truth, a rare flower now is growne,
Few men weare it in their hearts ;
Louers are more easily knowne
By their follies, then deserts.

Safer may we credit giue
To a faithlesse wandring Iew
Then a young mans vowes beleeue
When he sweares his loue is true.

Loue they make a poore blinde childe,
But let none trust such as hee :
Rather then to be beguil'd,
Euer let me simple be.

Kinde are her answeres,
But her performence keeps no day,
Breaks time as dancers
From their own Musicke when they stray:
All her free favours & smooth words,
Wing my hopes in vain.
O did ever voice so sweet but only fain?
Can true loveyeeld such delay,
Converting joy to pain?
Lost is our freedome,
When we submit to women so:
Why doe we neede them,
When in their best they worke out woe?
there is no wisedome
Can altar ends by Fate prefixt;
O why is the good of man with evil mixt?
Never were days yet cal'd two,
But one night went betwixt.

Breake now my heart and dye, Oh no, she may relent.
Let my despaire prevayle, stay, hope is not spent.
Should she now fixe one smile on thee, where were despaire?
The losse is but easie which smiles can repayre.
A stranger would please thee, if she were as fayre.

Her must I love or none, so sweet none breathes as shee,
The more is my despayre, alas she loves not me:
But cannot time make way for love through ribs of stelle?
The grecian inchanted all parts but the heele,
At last a shafte daunted which his hart did feele.

Now winter nights enlarge
   The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
   Upon the airy towers;
Let now the chimneys blaze
   And cups o'erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
   With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
   Shall wait on honey Love,
While youthful Revels, Masques, and Courtly sights,
   Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
   With lover's long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
   Though beauty no remorse.
all do not all things well:
   Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted Riddles tell,
   Some Poems smoothly read,
The Summer hath his joys,
   And winter his delights;
Though Love and all his pleasures are but toys,
   They shorten tedious nights.

What is it all that men possesse, among themselues conuersing ?
Wealth or fame, or some such boast, scarce worthy the rehearsing.
Women onely are mens good, with them in loue conuersing.

If weary, they prepare vs rest ; if sicke, their hand attends vs ;
When with griefe our hearts are prest, their comfort best befriends vs :
Sweet or sowre, they willing goe to share what fortune sends vs.

What pretty babes with paine they beare, our name and form presenting!
What we get, how wise they keepe ! by sparing, wants preuenting ;
Sorting all their houshold cares to our obseru'd contenting.

All this, of whose large vse I sing, in two words is expressed ;
Good wife is the good I praise, if by good men possessed ;
Bad with bad in ill sute well ; but good with good liue blessed.

If thou long'st so much to learn, sweet boy, what 'tis to love,
Do but fix thy thought on me, and thou shalt quickly prove.
  Little suit at first shall win
    Way to thy abashed desire;
  But then will I hedge thee in,
    Salamander-like, with fire.

With thee dance I will and sing, and thy fond dalliance bear;
We the grovy hills will climb and play the wanton there.
  Otherwhiles we'll gather flowers
    Lying dallying on the grass,
  And thus our delightful hours
    Full of waking dreams shall pass.

When thy joys were thus at height my love should turn from thee;
Old acquaintance then should grow as strange as strange might be;
  Twenty rivals thou should'st find
    Breaking all their hearts for me;
  When to all I'll prove more kind
    And more forward than to thee.

Thus thy silly youth enraged would soon my love defy.
But alas, poor soul, too late; clipped wings can never fly.
  Those sweet hours which we had passed,
    Called to mind thy heart would burn;
  And could'st thou fly ne'er so fast,
    They would make thee straight return.

Shall I come, sweet love, to thee
  When the evening beams are set?
Shall I not excluded be?
  Will you find no feignèd let?
Let me not, for pity, more
Tell the long hours at your door.

Who can tell what thief or foe
  In the covert of the night
For his prey will work my woe,
  Or through wicked foul despite?
So may I die unredressed,
Ere my long love be possessed.

But to let such dangers pass,
  Which a lover's thoughts disdain,
'Tis enough in such a place
  To attend Love's joys in vain.
Do not mock me in thy bed,
While these cold nights freeze me dead.

Thrice tosse these Oaken ashes in the ayre;
Thrice sit thou mute in this inchanted chayre:
And thrice three times tye up this true loves knot,
And murmur soft shee will, or shee will not.

Goe burn these poys'nous weedes in yon blew fire,
These Screech-owles fethers, and this prockling bryer,
This Cypresse gathered at a dead mans grave;
That all my feares and cares an end may have.

Then come you Fayries, dance with me a round,
Melt her hard hart with yout melodious sound:
In vaine alre all the charms I can devise,
She hath an Arte to breake them with her eyes.

Fire, fire, fire, fire,
Loe here I burne in such desire,
That all the treares that I can straine
Out of mine idle empty braine,
Cannot allay my scorching paine.
Come Trent and Humber, and fyre Thames,
Dread Ocean haste with alll thy streames:
And if you cannot quench my fire,
O drowne both me, and my desire.

Fire, fire, fire, fire,
There is no hell to my desire:
See all the Rivers backward flye,
And th'Ocean doth his waves deny,
For feare my heate should drink them dry.
Come heav'nly showres then pouring downe;
Come you that once the world did drowne:
Some then you spar'd, but now save all,
That else must burne, and with me fall.

Come, O come, my life's delight!
  Let me not in languor pine:
Love loves no delay, thy sight
  The more enjoyed, the more divine.
O come, and take from me
The pain of being deprived of thee.

Thou all sweetness dost enclose,
  Like a little world of bliss:
Beauty guards thy looks: the rose
  In them pure and eternal is.
Come then! and make thy flight
As swift to me as heavenly light!

   Could my heart more tongues imploy
Than it harbors thoughts of griefe,
    It is now so farre from ioy,
That it scarce could aske reliefe.
    Truest hearts by deedes vnkinde
    To despayre are most enclin'd.

    Happy mindes that can redeeme
Their engagements how they please ;
    That no ioyes, or hopes esteeme,
Halfe so pretious as their ease.
    Wisedom should prepare men so
    As if they did all foreknow.

    Yet no Art or Caution can
Growne affections easily change ;
    Vse is such a Lord of Man
That he brookes worst what is strange.
    Better neuer to be blest
    Than to loose all at the best.

Sleepe, angry beauty, sleep, and feare not me.
For who a sleeping Lyon dares prouoke?
It shall suffice me here to sit and see
Those lips shut vp that neuer kindely spoke.
    What sight can more content a louer's minde
    Then beauty seeming harmlesse, if not kinde?

My words haue charm'd her, for secure shee sleepes ;
Though guilty much of wrong done to my loue ;
And in her slumber, see, shee close-ey'd weepes :
Dreames often more then waking passions moue.
    Pleade, sleepe, my cause, and make her soft like thee,
That shee in peace may wake and pitty mee.

Neuer loue vnlesse you can
Beare with all the faults of man :
Men sometimes will iealous bee,
Though but little cause they see ;
    And hang the head, as discontent,
    And speak what straight they will repent.

Men that but one Saint adore,
Make a shew of loue to more :
Beauty must be scorn'd in none,
Though but truely seru'd in one :
    For what is courtship but disguise?
    True hearts may haue dissembling eyes.

Men when their affaires require,
Must a while themselues retire :
Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawke,
And not euer sit and talke.
    If these, and such like you can beare,
    Then like, and loue, and neuer fear.