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If ever I an hope admit,

Without thy image stamp'd on it;
Or any fear, till I begin

To find that you're concern'd therein;
If a joy e'er come to me,

That tastes of any thing but thee;
If any sorrow touch my mind,
Whilst you are well, and not unkind;
If I a minute's space debate,
Whether I shall curse and hate
The things beneath thy hatred fall,
Though all the world, myself and all;
And for love-if ever I
Approach to it again so nigh,
As to allow a toleration

To the least glimmering inclination:
If thou alone dost not controul
All those tyrants of my soul,

And to thy beauties ty'st them so,
That constant they as habits grow;
If any passion of my heart,

By any force, or any art,

Be brought to move one step from thee, Mayst thou no passion have for me!

If my busy' Imagination

Do not thee in all things fashion,
So that all fair species be
Hieroglyphick marks of thee;
If when she her sports does keep
(The lower soul being all asleep)

She play one dream, with all her art,
Where thou hast not the longest part;
If aught get place in my remembrance,
Without some badge of thy resemblance-
So that thy parts become to me
A kind of art of memory ;-
If my Understanding do

Seek any knowledge but of you;
If she do near thy body prize
Her bodies of philosophies;
If she to the Will do shew
Aught desirable but you;
Or, if that would not rebel,
Should she another doctrine tell;
If my Will do not resign

All her liberty to thine;

If she would not follow thee,

Though Fate and thou should disagree;

And if (for I a curse will give,

Such as shall force thee to believe)

My soul be not entirely thine;

May thy dear body ne'er be mine!

THE PASSIONS.

FROM Hate, Fear, Hope, Anger, and Envy, free,

And all the passions else that be,

In vain I boast of liberty,

In vain this state a freedom call;

Since I have Love, and Love is all:
Sot that I am, who think it fit to brag
That I have no disease besides the plague!

So in a zeal the sons of Israel

Sometimes upon their idols fell,
And they depos'd the powers of hell;
Baal and Astarte down they threw,
And Acharon and Moloch too:

All this imperfect piety did no good,
Whilst yet, alas! the calf of Bethel stood.

Fondly I boast, that I have drest my vine
With painful art, and that the wine
Is of a taste rich and divine;
Since Love, by mixing poison there,
Has made it worse than vinegar.

Love ev'n the taste of nectar changes so,
That Gods choose rather water here below.

Fear, Anger, Hope, all passions else that be,
Drive this one tyrant out of me,

And practise all your tyranny!

The change of ills some good will do:
Th' oppressed wretched Indians so,

Being slaves by the great Spanish monarch made,
Call in the States of Holland to their aid.

WISDOM.

'T IS mighty wise that you would now be thought,
With your grave rules from musty morals brought;
Through which some streaks too of divinity ran,
Partly of Monk and partly Puritan ;

With tedious repetitions too you'ave ta’en
Often the name of vanity in vain:

Things which, I take it, friend, you'd ne'er recite,

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"Come at night."

The wisest king refus'd all pleasures quite,
Till Wisdom from above did him enlight;
But, when that gift his ignorance did remove,

Pleasures he chose, and plac'd them all in love.
And, if by' event the counsels may
be seen,
This Wisdom 't was that brought the southern

queen:

She came not, like a good old wife, to know
The wholesome nature of all plants that grow;
Nor did so far from her own country roam,
To cure scald-heads and broken-shins at home:
She came for that, which more befits all wives,
The art of giving, not of saving, lives.

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THE DESPAIR.

BENEATH this gloomy shade,

By Nature only for my sorrows made,
I'll spend this voice in cries;
In tears I'll waste these eyes,
By Love so vainly fed;

So Lust, of old, the Deluge punished.

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"Ah, wretched youth!" said I ;

Ah, wretched youth!" twice did I sadly cry; "Ah, wretched youth!" the fields and floods reply.

When thoughts of Love I entertain, Imeet no words but "Never," and "In vain." "Never," alas! that dreadful name Which fuels the internal flame:

"Never" my time to come must waste;
"In vain" torments the present and the past.
"In vain, in vain," said I;

"In vain, in vain!" twice did I sadly cry;
"In vain, in vain!" the fields and floods reply.

No more shall fields or floods do so; For I to shades more dark and silent go: All this world's noise appears to me A dull, ill-acted comedy:

No comfort to my wounded sight,

In the sun's busy and impertinent light.

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