On His Mistress

By our first strange and fatal interview,By all desires which thereof did ensue,By our long starving hopes, by that remorseWhich my words masculine persuasive forceBegot in thee, and by the memoryOf 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 IAnd thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,Here I unswear, and over-swear 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 behindThee, only worthy to nurse in my mindThirst to come back; O, if thou die before,My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot moveRage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness; thou hast readHow roughly he in pieces shiveredFair Orithea, whom he swore he loved.Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have provedDangers unurg'd; feed on this flattery,That absent lovers one in th' other be.Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor changeThy body's habit, nor mind ; be not strangeTo thyself only. All will spy in thy faceA blushing womanly discovering grace.Richly cloth'd apes are call'd apes, and as soonEclipsed 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 companyOf players, which upon the world's stage be,Will quickly know thee, and know thee; and alasTh' indifferent Italian, as we passHis warm land, well content to think thee page,Will hunt thee with such lust, and hideous rage,As Lot's fair guests were vexed. But none of theseNor spongy hydroptic Dutch shall thee displease,If thou stay here. O stay here, for, for theeEngland is only a worthy gallery,To walk in expectation, till from thenceOur 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 curseOpenly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurseWith midnight's startings, crying out, O, O,Nurse, O my love is slain; I saw him goO'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,Assailed, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die.Augur me better chance, except dread JoveThink it enough for me to have had thy love.