My love is as a fever, longing ftill
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain fickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I defperate now approve
Defire is death, which phyfic did except.
Paft cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unreft;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth, vainly expreff'd ;
For I have fworn thee fair, and thought thee
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. [bright,
O me,
put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true fight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgement fled,
That cenfures falfely what they fee aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The fun itself fees not till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Left eyes well-feeing thy foul faults should find.
Canft thou, O cruel! fay I love thee not,
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy fake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'ft thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou lour'ft on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see thou loveft, and I am blind.
O, from what power haft thou this powerful might With infufficiency my heart to fway?
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And fwear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence haft thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is fuch ftrength and warrantise of skill,
That, in my mind, thy worst all beft exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldft not abhor my
If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
Love is too young to know what confcience is;
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amifs,
Left guilty of my faults thy fweet felf prover:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my grofs body's treason;
My foul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rifing at thy name doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy fide.
No want of confcience hold it that I call
Her 'love' for whofe dear love I rife and fall.
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