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THE ANNIVERSARY.

All kings, and all their favourites,

All glory of honours, beauties, wits,

The sun itself (which makes times, as these pass)
Is elder by a year now, than it was,
When thou and I first one another saw:
All other things to their destruction draw;
Only our love hath no decay:

This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running, it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first-last-everlasting day.

Two graves must hide thine and my corse;
If one might, death were no divorce;

Alas! as well as other princes, we,

(Who prince enough in one another be,)

Must leave at last in death these eyes, and ears,

Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears.
But souls where nothing dwells but love,

(All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove
This, or a love increaséd, there above,

When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

And then we shall be thoroughly blest:

But now no more than all the rest.

Here upon earth we are kings, and none but we

Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be;

Who is so safe as we, where none can do

Treason to us, except one of us two?

True and false fears let us refrain;

Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain

To write three score: this is the second of our reign.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

1586-1616.

["Poems." 1640.]

THE INDIFFERENT.

NEVER more will I protest
To love a woman but in jest:
For as they can not be true,
So to give each man his due,

When the wooing fit is past,
Their affection cannot last.

Therefore if I chance to meet
With a mistress, fair and sweet,
She my service shall obtain,
Loving her for love again:

Thus much liberty I crave,
Not to be a constant slave.

But when we have tried each other,

If she better like another,
Let her quickly change for me,
Then to change am I as free.

He or she that loves too long.
Sell their freedom for a song.

SECRECY PROTESTED.

Fear not (dear love) that I'll reveal
Those hours of pleasure we two steal:
No eye shall see, nor yet the sun
Descry, what thou and I have done;
No ear shall hear our love, but we
Silent as the night will be;

The god of love himself (whose dart
Did first wound mine, and then thy heart,)
Shall never know that we can tell

What sweets in stolen embraces dwell.
This only means may find it out,

If when I die physicians doubt

What caused my death, and there to view Of all their judgments which was true, Rip up my heart, O then I fear

The world will see thy picture there.

JOHN FLETCHER.

1576-1625.

["The Mad Lover." 1618.]

Go, happy heart! for thou shalt lie
Entombed in her for whom I die,
Example of her cruelty.

Tell her, if she chance to hide
Me for slowness, in her pride,
That it was for her I died.

If a tear escape her eye,
"T is not for my memory,
But thy rites of obsequy.

The altar was my loving breast,
My heart the sacrificéd beast,
And I was myself the priest.

Your body was the sacred shrine,

Your cruel mind the power divine,
Pleased with hearts of men, not kine.

["The Tragedy of Valentinian." About 1618.]

SONG.

Hear, ye ladies that despise

What the mighty Love has done;

Fear examples, and be wise:

Fair Calisto was a nun :
Leda, sailing on the stream,

To deceive the hopes of man,
Love accounting but a dream,
Doated on a silver swan;

Danaë, in a brazen tower,

Where no love was, loved a shower.

Hear, ye ladies that are coy,

What the mighty Love can do;

Fear the fierceness of the boy:

The chaste moon he makes to woo;

Vesta, kindling holy fires,

Circled round about with spies,

Never dreaming loose desires,

Doting at the altar dies.

Ilion, in a short hour, higher

He can build, and once more fire.

["A Wife for a Month." 1624.]

TO THE BLEST EVANTHE.

Let those complain that feel Love's cruelty,
And in sad legends write their woes;

With roses gently h' has corrected me,

My war is without rage or blows:

My mistress' eyes shine fair on my desires,

And hope springs up inflamed with her new fires.

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