171. Lover’s Infiniteness

IF yet I have not all thy love,

Dear, I shall never have it all;

I cannot breathe one other sigh to move,

Nor can entreat one other tear to fall;

And all my treasure, which should purchase thee,

Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters, I have spent;

Yet no more can be due to me,

Than at the bargain made was meant:

If, then, thy gift of love was partial,

That some to me, some should to others fall,

Dear, I shall never have it all.

Or if then thou gavest me all,

All was but all which thou hadst then;

But if in thy heart since there be, or shall

New love created be by other men,

Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears,

In sighs, in oaths, in letters outbid me,

This new love may beget new fears;

For this love was not vowed by thee,

And yet it was, thy gift being general:

The ground, thy heart, is mine; whatever shall

Grow there, dear, I should have it all.

Yet I would not have all yet;

He that hath all can have no more;

And since my love doth every day admit

New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store.

Thou canst not every day give me thy heart;

If thou canst give it, then thou never gav’st it:

Love’s riddles are that, though thy heart depart,

It stays at home, and thou with losing sav’st it,

But we will love a way more liberal

Than changing hearts,—to join them; so we shall

Be one, an one another’s All.