Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauties, orient deep,
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.

Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.

Ask me no more whither doth haste
The nightingale when May is past;
For in your sweet dividing throat
She winters, and keeps warm her note.

Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest;
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies!

TO MY INCONSTANT MISTRESS

When thou, poor Excommunicate
From all the joys of Love, shalt see
The full reward and glorious fate
Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
Then curse thine own Inconstancy.

A fairer hand than thine shall cure
That heart which thy false oaths did wound;
And to my soul a soul more pure
Than thine shall by Love’s hand be bound,
And both with equal glory crowned.

Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain
To Love, as I did once to thee:
When all thy tears shall be as vain
As mine were then: for thou shalt be
Damned for thy false Apostacy.

AN HYMENEAL DIALOGUE

Groom.—Tell me, my Love, since Hymen tied
The holy knot, hast thou not felt
A new-infused spirit slide
Into thy breast, whilst mine did melt?

Bride.—First tell me, Sweet, whose words were those?
For though your voice the air did break,
Yet did my soul the sense compose,
And through your lips my heart did speak.

Groom.—Then I perceive, when from the flame
Of love my scorched soul did retire,
Your frozen heart in that place came,
And sweetly melted in that fire.

Bride.—’Tis true, for when that mutual change
Of souls was made, with equal gain,
I straight might feel diffused a strange
But gentle heat through every vein.

Bride.—Thy bosom then I’ll make my nest,
Since there my willing soul doth perch.
Groom.—And for my heart, in thy chaste breast,
I’ll make an everlasting search.

O blest disunion, that doth so
Our bodies from our souls divide;
As two to one, and one four grow,
Each by contraction multiplied.

INGRATEFUL BEAUTY THREATENED

Know, Celia (since thou art so proud),
’Twas I that gave thee thy renown!
Thou hadst in the forgotten crowd
Of common beauties lived unknown,
Had not my verse exhaled thy name,
And with it imped the wings of fame.

That killing power is none of thine;
I gave it to thy voice and eyes;
Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;
Thou art my star, shin’st in my skies;
Then dart not from thy borrowed sphere
Lightning on him that fixed thee there.

Tempt me with such affrights no more,
Lest what I made I uncreate!
Let fools thy mystic forms adore;
I’ll know thee in thy mortal state.
Wise poets, that wrapped the truth in tales,
Knew her themselves through all her veils.