When most I wink, then do mine eyes
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy fhade shines fo!
How would, I fay, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on fightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to fee till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do fhow thee
If the dull fubftance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then, despite of space, I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the fartheft earth removed from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As foon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leifure with my moan;
Receiving nought by elements fo flow
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.
The other two, flight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-abfent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embaffy of love to thee,
My life, being made of four, with two alone
Sinks down to death, oppreff'd with melancholy;
Until life's composition be recured
By thofe swift meffengers return'd from thee,
Who even but now come back again, affured
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:
This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,
I fend them back again, and straight grow fad.
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conqueft of thy fight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture's fight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him doft lie,
A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And fays in him thy fair appearance lies.
To 'cide this title is impannelled
A queft of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:
As thus; mine eye's due is thine outward part,
my heart's right thine inward love of heart.
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famifh'd for a look,
Or heart in love with fighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part :
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thyself away art present still with me;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them and they with thee;
Or, if they fleep, thy picture in my fight
Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
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