Loving without hope.

I look’d if underneath the cope
Were one that loved, and did not hope;
But from his nobler soul remove
That modern heresy in love
When, hearing a shrill voice, I turn,
And lo! a sweet-tongued Nightingale,
Tender adorer of the Morn,—
In him I found that One and All.
For that same faithful bird and true,
Sweet and kind and constant lover,
Wond’rous passion did discover,
From the terrace of an eugh.
And tho’ ungrateful she appear’d
Unmoved with all she saw and heard;
Every day, before ’twas day,
More and kinder things he’d say,
Courteous, and never to be lost,
Return’d not with complaints, but praise
Loving, and all at his own cost;
Suffering, and without hope of ease:
For with a sad and trembling throat
He breathes into her breast this note:
“I love thee not, to make thee mine;
But love thee, ’cause thy form’s divine.”

The True Absence in Love.

Zelidaura, star divine,
That do’st in highest orb of beauty shine;
Pardon’d Murd’ress, by that heart
Itself, which thou dost kill, and coveted smart
Though my walk so distant lies
From the sunshine of thine eyes;
Into sullen shadows hurl’d,
To lie here buried from the world
’Tis the least reason of my moan,
That so much earth is ’twixt us thrown.
’Tis absence of another kind,
Grieves me; for where you are present too,
Love’s Geometry does find,
I have ten thousand miles to you.
’Tis not absence to be far,
But to abhor is to absent;
To those who in disfavour are,
Sight itself is banishment.[230]

To a Warrioress.

Heav’n, that created thee thus warlike, stole
Into a woman’s body a man’s soul.
But nature’s law in vain dost thou gainsay;
The woman’s valour lies another way.
The dress, the tear, the blush, the witching eye.
More witching tongue, are beauty’s armoury:
To railly; to discourse in companies,
Who’s fine, who courtly, who a wit, who wise;
And with the awing sweetness of a Dame,
As conscious of a face can tigers tame,
By tasks and circumstances to discover,
Amongst the best of Princes, the best Lover;
(The fruit of all those flowers) who serves with most
Self diffidence, who with the greatest boast;
Who twists an eye of Hope in braids of Fear;
Who silent (made for nothing but to bear
Sweet scorn and injuries of love) envies
Unto his tongue the treasure of his eyes:
Who, without vaunting shape, hath only wit;
Nor knows to hope reward, tho’ merit it:
Then, out of all, to make a choice so rare,
So lucky-wise, as if thou wert not fair.[231]

All mischiefs reparable but a lost Love.

1.

A second Argo, freighted
With fear and avarice,
Between the sea and skies
Hath penetrated
To the new world, unworn
With the red footsteps of the snowy morn.

2.