Say, we must part (sweet mercy bless
Us both i' th' sea, camp, wilderness),
Can we so far
Stray to become less circular
Than we are now?
No, no, that self-same heart, that vow
Which made us one, shall ne'er undo,
Or ravel so to make us two.
Live in thy peace; as for myself,
When I am bruised on the shelf
Of time, and show
My locks behung with frost and snow;
When with the rheum,
The cough, the ptisick, I consume
Unto an almost nothing; then
The ages fled I'll call again,
And with a tear compare these last
Lame and bad times with those are past;
While Baucis by,
My old lean wife, shall kiss it dry.
And so we'll sit
By th' fire, foretelling snow and sleet,
And weather by our aches, grown
Now old enough to be our own
True calendars, as puss's ear
Washed o'er's, to tell what change is near:
Then to assuage
The gripings of the chine by age,
I'll call my young
Iülus to sing such a song
I made upon my Julia's breast;
And of her blush at such a feast.
Then shall he read that flower of mine,
Enclos'd within a crystal shrine;
A primrose next;
A piece, then, of a higher text,
For to beget
In me a more transcendent heat
Than that insinuating fire,
Which crept into each aged sire,
When the fair Helen, from her eyes,
Shot forth her loving sorceries;
At which I'll rear
Mine aged limbs above my chair,
And, hearing it,
Flutter and crow as in a fit
Of fresh concupiscence, and cry:
No lust there's like to poetry.
Thus, frantic-crazy man, God wot,
I'll call to mind things half-forgot,
And oft between
Repeat the times that I have seen!
Thus ripe with tears,
And twisting my Iülus' hairs,
Doting, I'll weep and say, in truth,
Baucis, these were my sins of youth.
Then next I'll cause my hopeful lad,
If a wild apple can be had,
To crown the hearth,
Lar thus conspiring with our mirth;
Then to infuse
Our browner ale into the cruse,
Which sweetly spic'd, we'll first carouse
Unto the Genius of the house.
Then the next health to friends of mine,
Loving the brave Burgundian wine,
High sons of pith,
Whose fortunes I have frolicked with;
Such as could well
Bear up the magic bough and spell;
And dancing 'bout the mystic thyrse,
Give up the just applause to verse:
To those, and then again to thee,
We'll drink, my Wickes, until we be
Plump as the cherry,
Though not so fresh, yet full as merry
As the cricket,
The untam'd heifer, or the pricket,
Until our tongues shall tell our ears
We're younger by a score of years.