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'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's, |
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Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks; |
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The sun is spent, and now his flasks |
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Send forth light squibs, no constant rays; |
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The world's whole sap is sunk; |
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The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk, |
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Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk, |
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Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh, |
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Compared with me, who am their epitaph. |
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Study me then, you who shall lovers be |
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At the next world, that is, at the next spring; |
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For I am every dead thing, |
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In whom Love wrought new alchemy. |
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For his art did express |
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A quintessence even from nothingness, |
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From dull privations, and lean emptiness; |
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He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot |
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Of absence, darkness, death - things which are not. |
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All others, from all things, draw all that's good, |
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Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have; |
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I, by Love's limbec, am the grave |
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Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood |
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Have we two wept, and so |
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Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow, |
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To be two chaoses, when we did show |
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Care to aught else; and often absences |
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Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses. |
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But I am by her death - which word wrongs her - |
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Of the first nothing the elixir grown; |
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Were I a man, that I were one |
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I needs must know; I should prefer, |
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If I were any beast, |
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Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest, |
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And love; all, all some properties invest. |
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If I an ordinary nothing were, |
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As shadow, a light, and body must be here. |
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But I am none; nor will my sun renew. |
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You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun |
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At this time to the Goat is run |
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To fetch new lust, and give it you, |
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Enjoy your summer all, |
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Since she enjoys her long night's festival. |
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Let me prepare towards her, and let me call |
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This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this |
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Both the year's and the day's deep midnight is. |
