| |
| HOW wisely Nature did decree, | |
| With the same eyes to weep and see; | |
| That, having viewed the object vain, | |
| They might be ready to complain! | |
| And, since the self-deluding sight | 5 |
| In a false angle takes each height, | |
| These tears, which better measure all, | |
| Like watery lines and plummets fall. | |
| Two tears, which sorrow long did weigh | |
| Within the scales of either eye, | 10 |
| And then paid out in equal poise, | |
| Are the true price of all my joys. | |
| What in the world most fair appears, | |
| Yea, even laughter, turns to tears; | |
| And all the jewels which we prize | 15 |
| Melt in these pendants of the eyes. | |
| I have through every garden been, | |
| Amongst the red, the white, the green, | |
| And yet from all the flowers I saw, | |
| No honey, but these tears could draw, | 20 |
| So the all-seeing sun each day | |
| Distils the world with chymic ray; | |
| But finds the essence only showers, | |
| Which straight in pity back he pours. | |
| Yet happy they whom grief doth bless, | 25 |
| That weep the more, and see the less; | |
| And, to preserve their sight more true, | |
| Bathe still their eyes in their own dew. | |
| So Magdalen in tears more wise, | |
| Dissolved those captivating eyes, | 30 |
| Whose liquid chains could flowing meet | |
| To fetter her Redeemer’s feet. | |
| Not full sails hasting loaden home, | |
| Nor the chaste lady’s pregnant womb, | |
| Nor Cynthia teeming shows so fair | 35 |
| As two eyes swollen with weeping are. | |
| The sparkling glance that shoots desire, | |
| Drenched in these waves, does lose its fire; | |
| Yea oft the Thunderer pity takes, | |
| And here the hissing lightning slakes. | 40 |
| The incense was to Heaven dear, | |
| Not as a perfume, but a tear; | |
| And stars shew lovely in the night, | |
| But as they seem the tears of light. | |
| Ope then, mine eyes, your double sluice, | 45 |
| And practise so your noblest use; | |
| For others too, can see, or sleep, | |
| But only human eyes can weep. | |
| Now, like two clouds dissolving, drop, | |
| And at each tear in distance stop; | 50 |
| Now, like two fountains, trickle down; | |
| Now, like two floods, o’erturn and drown: | |
| Thus let your streams o’erflow your springs, | |
| Till eyes and tears be the same things; | |
| And each the other’s difference bears, | 55 |
| These weeping eyes, those seeing tears. | |
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