But I'll devise,

Among the rest,

A way that's best

How I may save mine eyes.

Yet say, should she condemn
Me to surrender them;

Then say, my part

Must be to weep

Out them, to keep
A poor yet loving heart.

Say too, she would have this:

She shall. Then my hope is
That when I'm poor,

And nothing have

To send or save,

I'm sure she'll ask no more.

LXXV.

TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF

TIME.

ATHER ye rose-buds while ye may,

GA

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to day

To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting;

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

LXXVI.

HIS POETRY HIS PILLAR.

NLY a little more

ONLY

I have to write,

Then I'll give o'er,

And bid the world good-night.

'Tis but a flying minute,

That I must stay,

Or linger in it;

And then I must away.

O time that cutt'st down all !

And scarce leav'st here

Memorial

Of any men that were.

How many lie forgot

In vaults beneath?

And piece-meal rot

Without a fame in death?

Behold this living stone,

I rear for me,

Ne'er to be thrown

Down, envious Time, by thee.

Pillars let some set up,

If so they please,

Here is my hope,

And my Pyramides.

LXXVII.

TO MUSIC, TO BECALM HIS FEVER.

HARM me asleep, and melt me so

CHAR

With thy delicious numbers;

That being ravished, hence I go

Away in easy slumbers.

Ease my sick head,

And make my bed,

Thou Power that canst sever

From me this ill:

And quickly still:

Though thou not kill

My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same

From a consuming fire,

Into a gentle-licking flame,
And make it thus expire.
Then make me weep
My pains asleep;

And give me such reposes,

That I, poor I,

May think, thereby,

I live and die

'Mongst roses.

Fall on me like a silent dew,

Or like those maiden showers, Which, by the peep of day, do strew A baptism o'er the flowers.

Melt, melt my pains,

With thy soft strains;

A heart as soft, a heart as kind,

A heart as sound and free,

As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee.

Bid that heart stay, and it will stay,

To honour thy decree :

Or bid it languish quite away,

And 't shall do so for thee.