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she writ to me;
    And if that favour made him fat,
    I said, “If any title be
Convey’d by this, ah! what doth it avail,
To be the fortieth name in an entail?”
    Thus I reclaim’d my buzzard love, to fly
At what, and when, and how, and where I choose.
    Now negligent of sports I lie,
    And now, as other falconers use,
I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep;
And the game kill’d, or lost, go talk or sleep.

THE WILL.
        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;
       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;
    My truth to them who at the court do live;
    My ingenuity and openness,
    To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;
    My silence to any, who abroad hath been;
       My money to a Capuchin:
   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.
        My faith I give to Roman Catholics;
    All my good works unto the Schismatics
    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
    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;
    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,
Taught’st me to make, as though I gave, when I do but 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
    In want of bread; to them which pass among
       All foreigners, mine English tongue:
   Though, Love, by making me love one
    Who thinks her friendship a fit portion
For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.
        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,
       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 three.

THE FUNERAL.
    WHOEVER comes to shroud me, do not harm,
     Nor question much,
That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm;
The mystery, the sign, you must not touch;
     For ‘tis my outward soul,
Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone,
     Will leave this to control
And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.
    For if the sinewy thread my brain lets fall
     Through every part
Can tie those parts, and make me one of all,
Those hairs which upward grew, and strength and art
     Have from a better brain,
Can better do ‘t; except she meant that I
     By this should know my pain,
As prisoners then are manacled, when they’re condemn’d to die.
    Whate’er she meant by it, bury it with me,
     For since I am
Love’s martyr, it might breed idolatry,
If into other hands these relics came.
     As ‘twas humility
To afford to