BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

      Great Love, some legacies: Here I bequeathe

      Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;

      If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;

      My tongue to fame; to embassadors 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 have 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 a 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 bequeathe 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 counsel 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.

      Thou, 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 no more be worth

      Than gold in mines where none doth draw it forth;

      And all your graces no more use shall have

      Than a sundial in a grave.

      Thou, Love, taught’st me, by making me

      Love her who doth neglect both thee and me,

      To invent and practise this one way to annihilate all three.

      MY liege, I did deny no prisoners;

      But I remember, when the fight was done,

      When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,

      Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

      Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress’d,

      Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap’d,

      Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home.

      He was perfuméd like a milliner,

      And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held

      A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

      He gave his nose and took ’t away again;

      Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,

      Took it in snuff: and still he smil’d and talk’d,

      And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

      He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,

      To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse

      Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

      With many holiday and lady terms

      He question’d me; among the rest, demanded

      My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.

      I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,

      To be so pester’d with a popinjay,

      Out of my grief and my impatience,

      Answer’d neglectingly I know not what,

      He should, or he should not; for he made me mad

      To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

      And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

      Of guns and drums and wounds – God save the mark! —

      And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth

      Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

      And that it was great pity, so it was,

      This villainous saltpetre should be digg’d

      Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

      Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d

      So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,

      He would himself have been a soldier.

      This bald, unjointed chat of his, my lord,

      I answer’d indirectly, as I said;

      And I beseech you, let not this report

      Come