LVII.

Being your flave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your defire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor fervices to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my fovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence four

When

you

have bid your fervant once adieu; Nor dare I queftion with my jealous thought Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought Save, where you are how happy you make those. So true a fool is love that in your will,

Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

LVIII.

That god forbid that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leifure!
O, let me fuffer, being at your beck,

The imprison'd absence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to fufferance, bide each check,
Without accufing you of injury.

Be where you lift, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of felf-doing crime.

I am to wait, though waiting fo be hell,
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

LIX.

If there be nothing new, but that which is Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled, Which, labouring for invention, bear amifs

The second burthen of a former child!

O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the fun,
Show me your image in fome antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!

That I might see what the old world could fay
To this compofed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the fame.

O, fure I am, the wits of former days

To fubjects worse have given admiring praise.

LX.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled fhore, So do our minutes haften to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before, In Tequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipfes 'gainst his glory-fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth tranffix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing ftands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope-my verse shall stand,
Praifing thy worth, defpite his cruel hand.

LXI.

Is it thy will thy image fhould keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Doft thou defire my flumbers should be broken,
While fhadows like to thee do mock my fight?
Is it thy fpirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,

To find out fhames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenour of thy jealousy?

O, no! thy love, though much, is not fo great:
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

To play the watchman ever for thy fake:

For thee watch I whilst thou doft wake elsewhere,

From me far off, with others all too near.