By our first strange and fatal interview,

By all desires which thereof did ensue,

By our long starving hopes, by that remorse

Which my words masculine persuasive force

Begot in thee, and by the memory

Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me,

I calmly beg.   But by thy father's wrath,

By all pains, which want and divorcement hath,

I conjure thee, and all the oaths which I

And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,

Here I unswear, and overswear them thus ;

Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.

Temper, O fair love, love's impetuous rage ;

Be my true mistress still, not my feign'd page.

I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind

Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind

Thirst to come back ; O ! if thou die before,

My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.

Thy else almighty beauty cannot move

Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,

Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness ; thou hast read

How roughly he in pieces shivered

Fair Orithea, whom he swore he loved.

Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have proved

Dangers unurged ; feed on this flattery,

That absent lovers one in th' other be.

Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change

Thy body's habit, nor mind ; be not strange

To thyself only.   All will spy in thy face

A blushing womanly discovering grace.

Richly clothed apes are call'd apes, and as soon

Eclipsed as bright, we call the moon the moon.

Men of France, changeable chameleons,

Spitals of diseases, shops of fashions,

Love's fuellers, and the rightest company

Of players, which upon the world's stage be,

Will quickly know thee, and no less, alas !

Th' indifferent Italian, as we pass

His warm land, well content to think thee page,

Will hunt thee with such lust, and hideous rage,

As Lot's fair guests were vex'd.   But none of these

Nor spongy hydroptic Dutch shall thee displease,

If thou stay here.  O stay here, for for thee

England is only a worthy gallery,

To walk in expectation, till from thence

Our greatest king call thee to his presence.

When I am gone, dream me some happiness ;

Nor let thy looks our long-hid love confess ;

Nor praise, nor dispraise me, nor bless nor curse

Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse

With midnight's startings, crying out, O ! O !

Nurse, O ! my love is slain ; I saw him go

O'er the white Alps alone ; I saw him, I,

Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die.

Augur me better chance, except dread Jove

Think it enough for me to have had thy love.