My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two fitter hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Good-Morrow, v. 15, &c.
The sense is; Our mutual loves may in many respects be fitly compared to corresponding hemispheres; but as no simile squares (
nihil simile est idem
), so here the simile fails, for there is nothing in our loves that corresponds to the cold north, or the declining west, which in two hemispheres must necessarily be supposed. But an ellipse of such length will scarcely rescue the line from the charge of nonsense or a bull.
January,
1829.
Woman's constancy.
A misnomer. The title ought to be
Mutual Inconstancy.
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine, &c.
Sun Rising, v. 17.
And see at night thy western land of mine, &c.
Progress of the Soul, 1 Song, 2. st.
This use of the word