IX
That which is one they shear and make it twain
Who would Love’s light and dark discriminate:
His pleasure is one essence with his pain,
Even his desire twin brother to his hate.
With him the foiled attempt is half achieving;
And being mastered, to be armed a lord;
And doubting every chance is still believing;
And losing all one’s own is all reward.
I am acquainted with misfortune’s fortune,
And better than herself her dowry know:
For she that is my fortune and misfortune,
Making me hapless, makes me happier so:
In which conceit, as older men may prove,
Lies manifest the very core of Love.
X
Shall any man for whose strong love another
Has thrown away his wealth and name in one,
Shall he turn mocker of a more than brother
To slight his need when his adventure’s done?
Or shall a breedless boy whose mother won him
In great men’s great concerns his little place
Turn when his farthing honours come upon him
To mock her yeoman air and conscious grace?
Then mock me as you do my narrow scope,
For you it was put out this light of mine:
Wrongfully wrecked my new adventured hope,
Wasted my wordy wealth, spilt my rich wine,
Made my square ship within a league of shore
Alas! To be entombed in seas and seen no more.
XI
They that have taken wages of things done
When sense abused has blocked the doors of sense,
They that have lost their heritage of the sun,
Their laughter and their holy innocence;
They turn them now to this thing, now to t’other,
For anchor hold against swift-eddying time,
Some to that square of earth which was their mother,
And some to noisy fame, and some to rhyme.
But I to that far morning where you stood
In fullness of the body, with your hands
Reposing on your walls, before your lands,
And all, together, making one great good:
Then did I cry “For this my birth was meant.
These are my use, and this my sacrament!”