A Valediction: Of Weeping - Ketil Bjørnstad, Randi Stene, Lars Anders Tomter

Let me pour forth

My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,

For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,

And by this mintage they are something worth,

For thus they be Pregnant of thee;

Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,

When a tear falls, that thou fall’st which it bore,

So thou and I are nothing then,

When on a divers shore.

On a round ball

A workman that hath copies by, can lay

An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,

And quickly make that, which was nothing, all.

So doth each tear,

Which thee doth wear,

A globe, yea world by that impression grow,

Till thy tears mix’d with mine do overflow

This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

O more than moon,

Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere;

Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forebear

To teach the sea, what it may do too soon;

Let not the wind

Examples find,

To do me more harm, than it purposeth;

Since thou and I sigh one another’s breath,

Whoe’er sighs most, is cruellest, and hastes the other’s death.