| |
| BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe, | |
| Great Love, some legacies; I here bequeath | |
| Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see; | |
| If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee; | |
| My tongue to Fame; to ambassadors mine ears; | 5 |
| To women or the sea, my tears: | |
| Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore | |
| By making me serve her who had twenty more, | |
| That I should give to none, but such as had too much before. | |
| |
| My constancy I to the planets give; | 10 |
| My truth to them who at the court do live; | |
| Mine ingenuity and openness, | |
| To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness; | |
| My silence to any, who abroad hath 1 been; | |
| My money to a Capuchin: | 15 |
| Thou, Love, taught’st me, by appointing me | |
| To love there, where no love received can be, | |
| Only to give to such as have an incapacity. 2 | |
| |
| My faith I give to Roman Catholics; | |
| All my good works unto the Schismatics | 20 |
| Of Amsterdam; my best civility | |
| And courtship to an University; | |
| My modesty I give to soldiers bare; | |
| My patience let gamesters share: | |
| Thou, Love, taught’st me, by making me | 25 |
| Love her that holds my love disparity, | |
| Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity. | |
| |
| I give my reputation to those | |
| Which were my friends; mine industry to foes; | |
| To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness; | 30 |
| My sickness to physicians, or excess; | |
| To nature all that I in rhyme have writ; | |
| And to my company my wit: | |
| Thou, Love, by making me adore | |
| Her, who begot this love in me before, | 35 |
| Taught’st me to make, as though I gave, when I do but 3 restore. | |
| |
| To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls, | |
| I give my physic books; my written rolls | |
| Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give; | |
| My brazen medals unto them which live | 40 |
| In want of bread; to them which pass among | |
| All foreigners, mine English tongue: | |
| Thou, Love, by making me love one | |
| Who thinks her friendship a fit portion | |
| For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion. | 45 |
| |
| Therefore I’ll give no more, but I’ll undo | |
| The world by dying, because love dies too. | |
| Then all your beauties will be no more worth | |
| Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth; | |
| And all your graces no more use shall have, | 50 |
| Than a sun-dial in a grave: | |
| Thou, Love, taught’st me by making me | |
| Love her who doth neglect both me and thee, | |
| To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all 4 three. | |
