Valediction To His Book
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'll tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt doTo anger destiny, as she doth us;How I shall stay, though she eloign me thus,And how posterity shall know it too;How thine may out-endureSibyl's glory, and obscureHer who from Pindar could allure,And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame,And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name. Study our manuscripts, those myriadsOf letters, which have past 'twixt thee and me;Thence write our annals, and in them will beTo all whom love's subliming fire invades,Rule and example found;There the faith of any groundNo schismatic will dare to wound,That sees, how Love this grace to us affords,To make, to keep, to use, to be these his records. This book, as long-lived as the elements,Or as the world's form, this all-gravèd tomeIn cypher writ, or new made idiom;We for Love's clergy only are instruments;When this book is made thus,Should again the ravenousVandals and Goths invade us,Learning were safe; in this our universe,Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels verse. Here Love's divines—since all divinityIs love or wonder—may find all they seek,Whether abstract spiritual love they like,Their souls exhaled with what they do not see;Or, loth so to amuseFaith's infirmity, they chooseSomething which they may see and use;For, though mind be the heaven, where love doth sit,Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it. Here more than in their books may lawyers find,Both by what titles mistresses are ours,And how prerogative these states devours,Transferr'd from Love himself, to womankind;Who, though from heart and eyes,They exact great subsidies,Forsake him who on them relies;And for the cause, honour, or conscience give;Chimeras vain as they or their prerogative. Here statesmen—or of them, they which can read—May of their occupation find the grounds;Love, and their art, alike it deadly wounds,If to consider what 'tis, one proceed.In both they do excelWho the present govern well,Whose weakness none doth, or dares tell;In this thy book, such will there something see,As in the Bible some can find out alchemy. Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I'll study thee,As he removes far off, that great heights takes;How great love is, presence best trial makes,But absence tries how long this love will be;To take a latitudeSun, or stars, are fitliest view'dAt their brightest, but to concludeOf longitudes, what other way have we,But to mark when and where the dark eclipses be?
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