Status Updates From Selected Poems

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree
Whose fruit threw death on else-immortal us,
If lecherous goats, if serpents envious
Cannot be damned, alas! why should I be?
Why should intent or reason, born in me,
Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous?
And, mercy being easy and glorious
To God, in his stern wrath why threatens he?

The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day,
But, oh, love’s day is short if love decay.

Love is a growing or full constant light,
And his first minute after noon is night.

So doth each tear
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow
This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven
dissolvèd so.

’Tis true, ’tis day; what though it be?
O wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise because ’tis light?
Did we lie down because ’twas night?
Love, which in spite of darkness brought us hither,
Should in despite of light keep us together

O how feeble is man’s power,
That if good fortune fall,°
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall

If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.