Forbeare
mee, Ile make love no more.
John Donne
FINIS.
<_Tongue-tied Love. _>
Faire eies do not think scorne to read of Love
That to your eies durst never it presume,
Since absence those sweet wonders do<th> remove
That nourish thoughts, yet sence and wordes consume;
This makes my pen more hardy then my tongue, 5
Free from my feare yet feeling my desire,
To utter that I have conceal'd so long
By doing what you did yourself require.
Believe not him whom Love hath left so wise
As to have power his owne tale for to tell, 10
For childrens greefes do yield the loudest cries,
And cold desires may be expressed well:
In well told Love most often falsehood lies,
But pittie him that only sighes and dies.
FINIS.
[<Absence. > <Tongue-tied Love. > _Ed_: _whole sonnets without
titles in_ _L74_: _the last six lines of the second appear
among Donne's poems in_ _B_, _O'F_, _S96_ <Tongue-tied Love. >]
[12 cold desires] coldest Ayres _O'F_]
<_Love, if a God thou art. _>
Love if a god thou art
then evermore thou must
Bee mercifull and just;
If thou bee just, o wherefore doth thy dart
Wound mine alone and not my mistresse hart? 5
If mercifull, then why
Am I to payne reservd
Who have thee truely serv'd,
When shee that by thy powre sets not a fly
Laughs thee to scorne and lives at liberty? 10
Then if a God thou woulds accounted bee,
Heale mee like her, or else wound her like mee.
<_Great Lord of Love. _>
Greate Lord of love, how busy still thou art
To give new wounds and fetters to my hart!
Is't not enough that thou didst twice before
It so mangle
And intangle 5
By sly arts
of false harts.
Forbeare mee, Ile make love no more.
Fy busy Lord, will it not thee suffice
To use the Rhetorique of her tongue and eyes 10
When I am waking, but that absent so
They invade mee
To perswade mee,
When that sleepe
Oft should keepe 15
And lock out every sence of woe.
If thou perswade mee thus to speake, I dye
And shee the murdresse, for me will deny;
And if for silence I bee prest, Her good
Yet I cherish 20
Though I perish,
For that shee
Shall bee free
From that foule guilt of spilling bloud.
[<Love if a God thou art. > <Great Lord of Love. > <Loves
Exchange. > _all without titles in_ _O'F_: _punctuation mainly
the Editor's_]
<_Loves Exchange_>
1. To sue for all thy Love, and thy whole hart
were madnesse.
I doe not sue, nor can admitt,
(Fayrest) from yo^u to have all yet;
Who giveth all, hath nothing to impart 5
But sadnesse.
2. Hee who receaveth all can have no more,
Then seeing.
My love by length of every howre
Gathers new strength, new growth, new power: 10
You must have dayly new rewards in store
Still beeing.
3. You cannot every day give mee yo^r hart
For merit;
Yet if you will, when yours doth goe 15
You shall have still one to bestow,
For you shall mine, when yours doth part,
Inherit.
4. Yet if you please weele find a better way
Then change them, 20
For so alone (dearest) wee shall
Bee one and one another all;
Let us so joyne our harts, that nothing may
Estrange them.
