To Mr R. W

If, as mine is, thy life a slumber be,Seeme, when thou read'st these lines, to dreame of me,Never did Morpheus nor his brother weareShapes soe like those Shapes, whom they would appeare,As this my letter is like me, for itHath my name, words, hand, feet, heart, minde and wit;It is my deed of gift of mee to thee,It is my Will, my selfe the Legacie.So thy retyrings I love, yea envie,Bred in thee by a wise melancholy,That I rejoyce, that unto where thou art,Though I stay here, I can thus send my heart,As kindly'as any enamored PatientHis Picture to his absent Love hath sent.

All newes I thinke sooner reach thee then mee;Havens are Heavens, and Ships wing'd Angels be,The which both Gospell, and sterne threatnings bring;Guyanaes harvest is nip'd in the spring,I feare; And with us (me thinkes) Fate deales soAs with the Jewes guide God did; he did showHim the rich land, but bar'd his entry in:Oh, slownes is our punishment and sinne.Perchance, these Spanish businesse being done,Which as the Earth betweene the Moone and SunEclipse the light which Guyana would give,Our discontinued hopes we shall retrive:But if (as all th'All must) hopes smoake away,Is not Almightie Vertue'an India?

If men be worlds, there is in every oneSome thing to answere in some proportionAll the worlds riches: And in good men, this,Vertue, our formes forme and our soules soule, is.

Kindly I envy thy songs perfectionBuilt of all th'elements as our bodyes are:That Litle of earth that is in it, is a faireDelicious garden where all sweetes are sowne.In it is cherishing fyer which dryes in meeGriefe which did drowne me: and halfe quench'd by itAre satirique fyres which urg'd me to have writtIn skorne of all: for now I admyre thee.And as Ayre doth fullfill the hollownesOf rotten walls; so it myne emptines,Where tost and mov'd it did beget this soundWhich as a lame Eccho of thyne doth rebound.Oh, I was dead; but since thy song new Life did give,I recreated, even by thy creature, live.