less your laughter, that I love.

Though I now write fifty years,

Poets, though divine, are men;

Some have loved as old again.

And it is not always face,

Clothes, or fortune gives the grace,

Or the feature, or the youth;

But the language and the truth,

With the ardor and the passion,

Gives the lover weight and fashion.

If you then will read the story,

First, prepare you to be sorry

That you will never knew till now

Either whom to love or how;

But be glad as soon with me

When you know that this is she

Of whose beauty is was sung,

She shall mae the old man young,

Keep the middle age ar the stay,

And let nothing high decay,

Till she be the reason why

All the world for love may die.

2. How He Saw Her

I beheld her, on a day,

When her look out-flourished May;

And her dressing did out-brave

All the pride the fields then have;

Far I was from being stupid,

For I ran and called on Cupid:

"Love, if thou wilt ever see

Mark of glory, come with me;

Where's thy quiver? Bend thy bow-

Here's a shaft, thou art too slow!"

And (withal) I did untie

Every cloud about his eye;

But he had not gained his sight

Sooner than he lost his might

O his courage; for away

Straight he ran and durst no stay,

Letting bow and arrow fall;

Nora for any threat or call

Could be brought once back to look.

I, foolhardy, there up-took

Both the arrow he had quit

And the bow, with thought to hit

This my object. But she threw

Such a lightning, as I drew,

At my face, that took my sight

And my motion from me quite;

So that there I stood a stone,

Mocked of all, and called of one

(Which with grief and wrath I heard)

Cupid's statue with a beard,

Or else one that played his ape,

In a Hurcules-his shape.

3. What He Suffered

After many scorns like these,

Which the prouder beauties please,

She content was to restore

Eyes and limbs, to jurt me more;

And would, on conditions, be

Reconciled to Love, and me:

First, that I kneeling yield

Both the bow and shaft I held

Unto her; which Love might take

At her hand, with oarth to make

Me the scope of his next draught,

Aimed with that self-same shaft/

He no sooner heard the law,

But the arrow home did draw

And (to gain her by his art)

Left it sticking in my heart;

Which when she beheld to bleed,

She repented of the deed,

And would fain have changed the fate,

But hte pity comes too late.

Loser-like, now, all my wreak

Is, that I have leave to speak,

And in either prose or song

To revenge me with my tongue,

Which how dexteriously I do,

Hear and make example too.

4. Her Triumph

See the chariot at hand here of Love,

__Wherein my lady rideth!

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,

__And well the car Love guideth.

As she goes, all hearts do duty

____________Unto her beauty;

And enamored do wish, so they might

____________But enjoys such a sight,

That they still were to run by her side,

Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light

__All that Love's world compromiseth!

Do but look on her hair, it is bright

__As Love's star with it riseth!

Do but mark, her forehead's smoother

____________Than words that soother her!

And from her arched brows, such a grace

____________Sheds itself through the face,

As alone there triumphs to the lige

All the gain, all the good, of the elmennt's strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,

__Before rude hands have touched it?

Have you marked but the fall o' the snow,

__Before the soil hath smuched it?

Have you felt the wool o' the beaver,

____________Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier,

____________Or ther nard i' the fire?

Or have tasted the baf o' the bee?

O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

5. His Discourse with Cupid

Noblest Charis, you that are

Both my fortune and my star,

And do more my blood

Than the various moon the flood!

Hear what late discourse of you

Love and I have had, and true.

'Mongst my Muses finding me,

Where he chanced your name to see

Set, and to this softer strain,

"Sure," said he, "if I have brain,

This, here sung, can be no other

By description but my mother!

So Hath Homer praised her hair;

So Anacreon draw the air

Of her face, and made to rise,

Just above her sparkling eyes,

Both her brows, bent like my bow.

By her looks I do her know,

Which you call my shafts, And see!

Such my mother's blushes be,

And the bath your verse discloses

In her cheeks, of milk and roses,

Such as oft I wanton in!

And, above her even chin,

Have you placed the bank of kisses,

Where, you say, men gather bisses,

Ripened when a breath more sweet

Than when flowers and west winds meet.

Nay, her white and polished neck,

With the lace that doth it deck,

Is my mother's! Hearts of slain

Lovers made into a chain!

And between each rising breast,

Lies the valley called my nest,

Where I sit and proyn my wings

After flight, and put new stings

To my shafts! Her very name

With my mother's is the same."

"I confess all," I replied,

"And the glass hangs by her side,

And the girdle ' bout her waist,

All is Venus, save unchaste.

But alas, thou seest the least

Of her good, who is the best

Of her sex; but coud'st thou, Love,

Call to mind the forms that srove

For the apple, and those three

Make in one, the same were she.

For this beauty yet doth hide

Something morethan thou hast spied;

Outward grace weak love beguiles.

She is Venus when she smiles,

But she's Juno when she walks,

And Minerva when she talks."

6. Claiming a Second Kiss by Desert

Charis, guess, and do not miss,

Since I drew a morning kiss

From your lips, and sucked and air

Thence, as sweet as you are fair,

__What my Muse and I have done:

Whether we have lost or won,

If by us the odds were laid

That the bride (allowed as a maid)

Looked not half so fresh and fair,

With th' advantageof her ahir

ANd her jewels, to the view

Of th' assembly, as did you!

__Or that, did you sit or walk,

You were more the eye and talk

Of the court today, than all

Else that glistered in Whitehall;

So as those that had your sight

Wished the bride were changed tonight,

And did think such rites were due

To no other Grace but you!

__Or if you did move tonight

In the dances, with what spite

Of you peers you were beheld,

That at every motion swelled

SO to see a lady tread

As might all the graces lead,

And was worthy, being so seen,

To be envied of the queen.

Or if you would yet have stayed,

Whether any would upbraid

To himseld his loss of time;

Or have charged his sight of crime,

To have left all sight for you.

__Guess of these, which is the true;

And if such a verse as this

May not claim another kiss.

7. Begging Another, on Color of Mending the Former

For love's sake, Kiss me once again;

__I long , and should not beg in vain.

____Here's none to spy or see;

______Why do you doubt or stay?

__I'll taste as lightly as the bee

That doth but touch his flower and flies away.

__Once more, and, faith, I will be gone;

__Can he that loves ask less than one?

____Nay, you may err in this,

______And all your bounty wrong;

__This could be called but half a kiss.

What w'are but once to do, We should do long.

__I will but mend the last, and tell

__Where, how it would have relished well;

____Join lip to lip and try;

_______Each such other's breath.

__And whilst out tongues perplexed lie,

Let who will think us dead, or wish our death.

8. Urging Her of a Promise

Charis one day in discourse

Had of lobe and of his force

Lightly promised she would tell

What a mand she could love well;

And that promise set on fire

All that heard her, with desire.

With the rest, I long expected

When the work would be effected;

But we find that cold delay,

And excuse spun every day,

As, until she tell her one,

We all fear she loveth none.

Therefore, Charis, you musn't do't,

For I will so urge you to't,

You shall neither eat nor sleep,

No, nor forth your window peep

With your emissary eye,

To fetch in the forms go by,

And pronounce which band or lace

Better fits him than his face.

Nay, I will not let you sit

'Fore your idol glass a whit,

To say over every purl

There, or to reform a curl;

Or with secretary Sis

To consult if fucus this

Be as good as was the last.

All your sweet of life is past;

Make accompt, unless you can-

And that quickly-speak your man.

9. Her Man Described by Her Own Dictamen

Of your trouble, Ben, to ease me,

I will tell what man would please me.

I would have him, if I could,

Noble, or of greater blood:

Titles, I confess, do take me;

And a woman God did make me.

French to boot, at least in fashion,

And his manners of that nation.

__Young I'd have him , too, and fair,

Yet a man; with crisped hair

Cast in thousand snares and rings

For love's fingers, and his wings--

Chestnut color, or more slack

Gold, upon a ground of black.

For he must look wanton-wise.

__Eyebrows bent like cupid's bow,

Front, an amplefield of snow;

Even nose, and cheek withal

Smooth as is the billiard ball;

Chin as wooly as the peach,

And his lip should kissing teach,

Till he cherished too much beard,

And make Lobe or me afeared.

__He would have a hand as soft

As the down, and show it oft;

Skin as smooth as any rush,

And so thin, to see a blush

Rising through it e're it came;

All his blood should be a flame

Quicly fired, as in beginners

In live's school, and yet no sinner.

__'Twere too long to speak of all;

What we harmony do call

In a body, should be there.

Well he should his clothes too wear;

Yet no tailor help to make him;

Dressed, you still for man should take him.

And not think h'had eat a stake,

Or were set up in a brake.

__Valiant he should be as fire,

Showing danger more than ire;

Bounteous as the clouds to earth,

And as honest as his birth.

All his actions to be such

As to do no thing too much.

Nor o'er-praise nor contemn,

Nor out-value nor contemn,

Nor do wrongs nor wrongs receive,

Nor tie knots unweave;

And from baseness to be free,

As he durst love Truth and me.

__Such a man, with every part,

I could give my very heart;

But of one, if short he came,

I can rest me where I am.

10. Another Lady's Exception Present at the Hearing

For his mind I do not care:

That's a toy I could spare.

Let his title be but great,

His clothes rich an band sit neat,

Himself young and face be good:

All I wish is understood.

What you plesase you parts may call;

'Tis one good part I'l lie withal.