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Fayre is my love, when her fayre golden heares, With the loose wynd ye waving chance to marke: Fayre when the rose in her red cheekes appears, Or in her eyes the fyre of love does sparke. Fayre when her brest lyke a rich laden barke, With pretious merchandize she forth doth lay: Fayre when that cloud of pryde which oft doth dark Her goodly light with smiles she drives away, But fayrest she, when so she doth display The gate with pearles and rubyes richly dight: Throgh which her words so wise do make their way To beare the message of her gentle spright. The rest be works of natures wonderment, But this the worke of harts astonishment.

Lyke as the Culver on the barèd bough, Sits mourning for the absence of her mate: And in her songs sends many a wishfull vow, For his returne that seemes to linger late, So I alone now left disconsolate, Mourne to my selfe the absence of my love: And wandring here and there all desolate, Seek with my playnts to match that mournful dove: Ne joy of ought that under heaven doth hove, Can comfort me, but her owne joyous sight: Whose sweet aspèct both God and man can move, In her unspotted pleasauns to delight. Dark is my day, whyles her fayre light I mis, And dead my life that wants such lively blis.

More then most faire, full of the living fire, Kindled above unto the maker neere: No eies but joyes, in which al powers conspire, That to the world naught else be counted deare. Thrugh your bright beams doth not the blinded guest Shoot out his darts to base affections wound? But Angels come to lead fraile mindes to rest In chast desires on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts and fashion me within, You stop my toung, and teach my hart to speake, You calme the storme that passion did begin, Strong thrugh your cause, but by your vertue weak. Dark is the world, where your light shined never; Well is he borne, that may behold you ever.

Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle, Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain: And both the Indias of their treasures spoile, What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine? For loe my love doth in her selfe containe All this worlds riches that may farre be found, If Saphyres, loe hir eies be Saphyres plaine, If Rubies, loe hir lips be Rubies sound: If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles both pure and round; If Yvorie, her forhead yvory weene; If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground; If silver, her faire hands are silver sheene; But that which fairest is, but few behold, Her mind adornd with vertues manifold.

Penelope for her Ulisses sake, Deviz’d a Web her wooers to deceave: In which the worke that she all day did make The same at night she did again unreave: Such subtile craft my Damzell doth conceave, Th’ importune suit of my desire to shnone: For all that I in many dayes doo weave, In one short houre I find by her undonne. So when I thinke to end that I begonne, I must begin and never bring to end: For with one looke she spils that long I sponne, And with one word my whole years work doth rend. Such labour like the Spyders web I fynd, Whose fruitless worke is broken with least wynd.

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold, But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, And feel my flames augmented manifold? What more miraculous thing may be told, That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice, And ice, which is congeal’d with senseless cold, Should kindle fire by wonderful device? Such is the power of love in gentle mind, That it can alter all the course of kind.

Suppose I were to eat you I should probably begin with the fingers, the cheeks and the breasts yet all of you would tempt me, so powerfully spicy as to discompose my choice. While I gobbled you up delicacy by tidbit I should lay the little bones ever so gently round my plate and caress the bigger bones like ivory talismans. When I had quite devoured the edible you (your tongue informing my voice-box) I would wake in the groin of night to feel, ever so slowly, your plangent, ravishing ghost munching my fingers and toes. Here, with an awkward, delicate gesture someone slides out his heart and offers it on a spoon, garnished with adjectives.

Three sorts of serpents do resemble thee: That dangerous eye-killing cockatrice, The enchanting siren, which doth so entice, The weeping crocodile—these vile pernicious three. The basilisk his nature takes from thee, Who for my life in secret wait dost lie, And to my heart sendst poison from thine eye: Thus do I feel the pain, the cause, yet cannot see. Fair-maid no more, but Mer-maid be thy name, Who with thy sweet alluring harmony Hast played the thief, and stolen my heart from me, And like a tyrant makst my grief thy game: Thou crocodile, who when thou hast me slain, Lamentst my death, with tears of thy disdain.

‘He thought it had only been put there to finish off th’ alphabet, like, though ampus-and (&) would ha’ done as well.’ (George Eliot: Adam Bede) And had in fact, for generations— the plump, open armed ‘&’ waving goodbye from the end of the old-world alphabet like an innkeeper framed in doorway candlelight, farewells swelled with hopes of come again. Then the old world burned down because we sensed, beyond the candle’s glow, the road led to a dead end. No traveler returned, even the unverified odd reports of happy returns petered out. So we renovated the alphabet, signing it off with a streamlined ‘z’ as sharp and final as lightning: no sense in posting notice of further connections that didn’t exist, or passing off maps as places. Trouble was, nobody felt at home in the revamped compound. Bookings fell off, postcards of views of blank walls piled unsold in the unvisited gift shop, the same paperbacks stalled on the revolving racks. It was a paradise of sorts, a golden age of nullity, no relatives breaking the costly silence. No wonder Eliot’s befuddled Jacob Storey felt his page of Z’s was somehow ‘not right,’ that ‘it was a letter you never wanted hardly.’ He knew, as one newly released from the unlit cell of his long-unlettered ignorance, what you did want hardly: you wanted, needed—as hardly as Hetty Sorrel, abandoned at the dock—someone to stand by. You were the murderess of your baby, silenced with a ‘z.’ You needed a hand, the open-armed return of all your relations. You wanted, harder than death, ampersand

... and we remarked on how piranhas, in uncounted numbers, are capable of consuming an entire ampersand in such-and-such a time frame. The sun was up, and below, and was somewhere overhead. And I thought.... ... and we shared thick and hearty laughs, and continued into the very dense jungle. And thick. Preceding us on the trailsides were ruins overgrown, boots stuck in mud, and heads of sunken ampersands. Which made sense to us, for.... ... and the rainy seasons came, and went, and came. And day, and further day. And February was unusually warm, and this, in a zone renowned for unusually warm Februaries. We cooled our hands on ampersands, which warmed again when.... ... and you took my hand, and clasped it, tighter than I could stand it, tighter than mud clasping ampersands still. And so I fell, and you held me as I, unstanding, looked up at lianas in trees — the monkey skyways that    .... ... and the language we used with each other became thicker. We looked together at some ludicrous, large leaf — larger than us both, and thicker even than several large ampersands, together. We used thick language to describe it, then.... ... and we grew ravenous and set camp. And established a village. Built huts with cots, and plots of land for farms. We grew ampersands there and ate them, and when through with their husks, threw them into our yards, where.... ... and you took me, deeper into jungle, with the wild dogs and boars, and cackling beasts, and beasts that swung in silence. Dangling from the tufts, saliva strands from ampersands obscured us in the roughs. We toweled and traveled and tired and.... ... and the birds became aware of our presence, though we desired to blend in. We made tangible feathers from intangible thoughts, stuck beaks to our mouths using ampersand glue. We sat in our colors, without motion for days, until.... ... and you communed with insensible arrangements: changeable organizations; shapeless distractions; puffs of dimension; ampersands; the dead. I pulled you close and kissed you, but all I could taste was vortex, and sweet guava, and the distances to.... ... and we grew thicker together, for I too could perceive, in the dry expanses, forms of invisible logos made thick — the un-wet language of communicable waves. We washed ourselves in it, but our feet, touching ampersands, touched not the.... ... and you dipped your foot, from the riverbank into the river, where the piranhas began eating. And I sat, looking at my hands. Sat, for there was nothing I could say. On the riverbank, alone. There, with whatever remained. &....