PERJURY EXCUSED
Alas, it is too late! I can no more
Love now than I have loved before:
My Flora, 'tis my fate, not I;
And what you call contempt is destiny.
I am no monster, sure: I cannot show5
Two hearts; one I already owe;
And I have bound myself with oaths, and vowed
Oft'ner, I fear, than Heaven hath e'er allowed,
That faces now should work no more on me,
Than if they could not charm, or I not see.10
And shall I break them? shall I think you can
Love, if I could, so foul a perjur'd man?
O no, 'tis equally impossible that I
Should love again, or you love perjury.
UPON T. C. HAVING THE POX
Troth, Tom, I must confess I much admire
Thy water should find passage through the fire;
For fire and water never could agree:
These now by nature have some sympathy:
Sure then his way he forces, for all know5
The French ne'er grants a passage to his foe.
If it be so, his valour I must praise,
That being the weaker, yet can force his ways;
And wish that to his valour he had strength,
That he might drive the fire quite out at length;10
For, troth, as yet the fire gets the day,
For evermore the water runs away.
UPON THE FIRST SIGHT OF MY LADY SEYMOUR
Wonder not much, if thus amaz'd I look;
Since I saw you, I have been planet-strook:
A beauty, and so rare, I did descry,
As, should I set her forth, you all, as I,
Would lose your hearts; for he that can5
Know her and live, he must be more than man—
An apparition of so sweet a creature,
That, credit me, she had not any feature
