The Damp

WHEN I am dead, and doctors know not why, And my friends' curiosity Will have me cut up to survey each part, When they shall find your picture in my heart, You think a sudden damp of love Will thorough all their senses move, And work on them as me, and so prefer Your murder to the name of massacre,

Poor victories; but if you dare be brave, And pleasure in your conquest have, First kill th' enormous giant, your Disdain; And let th' enchantress Honour, next be slain; And like a Goth and Vandal rise, Deface records and histories Of your own arts and triumphs over men, And without such advantage kill me then,

For I could muster up, as well as you, My giants, and my witches too, Which are vast Constancy and Secretness; But these I neither look for nor profess; Kill me as woman, let me die As a mere man; do you but try Your passive valour, and you shall find then, Naked you have odds enough of any man.