No More Learning

Sweet Oenone, do but say
Love thou dost, though love says nay.
Speak me fair; for lovers be
Gently kill'd by flattery.


791. VERSES.

Who will not honour noble numbers, when
Verses out-live the bravest deeds of men?


792. HAPPINESS.

That happiness does still the longest thrive,
Where joys and griefs have turns alternative.


793. THINGS OF CHOICE LONG A-COMING.

We pray 'gainst war, yet we enjoy no peace;
_Desire deferr'd is that it may increase_.


794. POETRY PERPETUATES THE POET.

Here I myself might likewise die,
And utterly forgotten lie,
But that eternal poetry
Repullulation gives me here
Unto the thirtieth thousand year,
When all now dead shall reappear.

_Repullulation_, rejuvenescence.
_Thirtieth thousand year_, an allusion to the doctrine of the Platonic
year.


797. KISSES.

Give me the food that satisfies a guest:
Kisses are but dry banquets to a feast.


798. ORPHEUS.

Orpheus he went, as poets tell,
To fetch Eurydice from hell;
And had her; but it was upon
This short but strict condition:
Backward he should not look while he
Led her through hell's obscurity:
But ah! it happened, as he made
His passage through that dreadful shade,
Revolve he did his loving eye,
For gentle fear or jealousy;
And looking back, that look did sever
Him and Eurydice for ever.


803. TO SAPPHO.

Sappho, I will choose to go
Where the northern winds do blow
Endless ice and endless snow:
Rather than I once would see
But a winter's face in thee,
To benumb my hopes and me.


804. TO HIS FAITHFUL FRIEND, M. JOHN CROFTS, CUP-BEARER TO THE KING.

For all thy many courtesies to me,
Nothing I have, my Crofts, to send to thee
For the requital, save this only one
Half of my just remuneration.
For since I've travell'd all this realm throughout
To seek and find some few immortals out
To circumspangle this my spacious sphere,
As lamps for everlasting shining here;
And having fix'd thee in mine orb a star,
Amongst the rest, both bright and singular,
The present age will tell the world thou art,
If not to th' whole, yet satisfi'd in part.