X. The Dream

IMAGE of her whom I love, more than she,

Whose fair impression in my faithful heart

Makes me her medal, and makes her love me,

As kings do coins, to which their stamps impart

The value; go, and take my heart from hence,

Which now is grown too great and good for me.

Honours oppress weak spirits, and our sense

Strong objects dull; the more, the less we see.

When you are gone, and reason gone with you,

Then fantasy is queen and soul, and all;

She can present joys meaner than you do,

Convenient, and more proportional.

So, if I dream I have you, I have you,

For all our joys are but fantastical;

And so I ’scape the pain, for pain is true;

And sleep, which locks up sense, doth lock out all.

After a such fruition I shall wake,

And, but the waking, nothing shall repent;

And shall to love more thankful sonnets make,

Than if more honour, tears, and pains were spent.

But, dearest heart and dearer image, stay;

Alas! true joys at best are dream enough;

Though you stay here, you pass too fast away,

For even at first life’s taper is a snuff.

Fill’d with her love, may I be rather grown

Mad with much heart, than idiot with none.