I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

“Thin Rain, whom are you haunting,
  That you haunt my door?”
—Surely it is not I she’s wanting;
  Someone living here before—
“Nobody’s in the house but me:
You may come in if you like and see.”

Thin as thread, with exquisite fingers,—
  Have you seen her, any of you?—
Grey shawl, and leaning on the wind,
  And the garden showing through?

Glimmering eyes,—and silent, mostly,
  Sort of a whisper, sort of a purr,
Asking something, asking it over,
  If you get a sound from her.—

Ever see her, any of you?—
  Strangest thing I’ve ever known,—
Every night since I moved in,
  And I came to be alone.

“Thin Rain, hush with your knocking!
  You may not come in!
This is I that you hear rocking;
  Nobody’s with me, nor has been!”

Curious, how she tried the window,—
  Odd, the way she tries the door,—
Wonder just what sort of people
  Could have had this house before . . .

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
’Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows *****, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deny’st me is;
It ****** me first, and now ***** thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
  Yet this enjoys before it woo,
  And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
  And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w’are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
  Though use make you apt to **** me,
  Let not to that, self-****** added be,
  And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast  thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it ****** from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;
  ’Tis true, then learn how false fears be:
  Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
  Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

Two make two Ideas
Four 1 conspiracy so;
Now more syllables