Let Lovers that like honey flies
After balme dropping showres
Swarming in sun-shine of thine eyes,
Kissing thy beauties flowres;
Beleeve that they do live, while they do taste
Of all those dainty sweetnesses thou hast.
Let them beleeve while they do sip,
Or while that they have suckt,
The rosie Nectar of thy lip,
Or from the rose unpluckt,
Of thy fair cheek, or of thy fragrant breast,
The Aromaticke odours of the East.
Let them beleeve, that they do live,
So long as they are sed,
Upon the honey thou dost give,
Which wanting they are dead:
For if thou that Ambrosiall food deny,
Their loves like soules of beasts do with them die.
But (Cynthia) that nere ending love
Wherewith I honour thee,
To be immortall thus I prove,
For though that absence be
A truer portraiture of death than sleep,
Nay a true death, for absent Lovers weep:
Yet like a long departed soul
That hath a body lost,
Hath yet a being to condole,
So my love like a ghost,
Remaining followes thee, whose heaven thou art,
Lives, though not in thine eyes, yet in my heart.