Love’s War

TILL I have peace with thee, war other men,

And when I have peace, can I leave thee then?

All other wars are scrupulous; only thou

O free fair city, mayst thyself allow

To any one. In Flanders, who can tell

Whether the master press, or men rebel?

Only we know, that which most idiots say,

They must bear blows which come to part the fray.

France in her lunatic giddiness did hate

Ever our men, yea, and our God, of late;

Yet she relies upon our angels well,

Which ne’er return, no more than they which fell.

Sick Ireland is with a strange war possest,

Like to an ague, now raging, now at rest,

Which time will cure; yet it must do her good

If she were purg’d, and her head-vein let blood;

And Midas joys our Spanish journeys give;

We touch all gold, but find no food to live;

And I should be in that hot parching clime

To dust and ashes turned before my time.

To mew me in a ship is to enthral

Me in a prison that were like to fall;

Or in a cloister, save that there men dwell

In a calm heaven, here in a swaying hell.

Long voyages are long consumptions,

And ships are carts for executions;

Yea, they are deaths; is ’t not all one to fly

Into another world, as ’tis to die?

Here let me war; in these arms let me lie:

Here let me parley, batter, bleed, and die.

Thine arms imprison me, and my arms thee;

Thy heart thy ransom is; take mine for me.

Other men war, that they their rest may gain,

But we will rest that we may fight again.

Those wars th’ ignorant, these th’ experienced love;

There we are always under, here above.

There engines far off breed a just true fear;

Near thrusts, pikes, stabs, yea, bullets, hurt not here.

There lies are wrongs; here safe uprightly lie.

There men kill men; we’ll make one by and by.

Thou nothing, I not half so much shall do

In those wars, as they may which from us two

Shall spring. Thousands we see which travel not

To war, but stay, swords, arms, and shot

To make at home; and shall not I do then

More glorious service, staying to make men?