As virtuous men pass mildly away1
And whisper to their souls to go,2
Whilst some of their sad friends do say3
Now his breath goes, and some say, no ;4
So let us melt and make no noise,5
Nor tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move ;6
’Twere profanation of our joys7
To tell the laity our love.8
Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,9
Men reckon what it did and meant ;10
But trepidations of the spheres,11
Though greater far, are innocent.12
Dull sublunary lovers’ love,13
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit14
Absence, for that it doth remove15
Those things which elemented it.16
But we by a love so far refined17
That ourselves know not what it is,18
Interassured of the mind19
Care less eyes, lips, and hands to miss.20
Our two souls, therefore, which are one,21
Though I must go, endure not yet22
A breach, but an expansion23
Like gold to airy thinness beat.24
If they be two, they are two so25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;26
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show27
To move, but doth, if the other do.28
And though it in the centre sit,29
Yet, when the other far doth roam,30
It leans and hearkens after it31
And grows erect, as that comes home.32
Such wilt thou be to me, who must33
Like the other foot, obliquely run ;34
Thy firmness makes my circle just,35
And makes me end where I begun.36