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In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
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For they in thee a thousand errors note;
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But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
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Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;
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Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
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Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
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Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
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To any sensual feast with thee alone:
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But my five wits nor my five senses can
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Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
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Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,
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Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:
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Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
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That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
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Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,
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Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
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O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
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And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
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Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
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That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
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And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
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Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
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Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those
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Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
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Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows
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Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
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If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
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By self-example mayst thou be denied!
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Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch
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One of her feather'd creatures broke away,
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Sets down her babe and makes an swift dispatch
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In pursuit of the thing she would have stay,
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Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
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Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
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To follow that which flies before her face,
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Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;
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So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,
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Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;
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But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
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And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind:
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So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'
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If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.
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Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
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Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
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The better angel is a man right fair,
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The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
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To win me soon to hell, my female evil
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Tempteth my better angel from my side,
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And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
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Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
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And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
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Suspect I may, but not directly tell;
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But being both from me, both to each friend,
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I guess one angel in another's hell:
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Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
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Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
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Those lips that Love's own hand did make
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Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
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To me that languish'd for her sake;
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But when she saw my woeful state,
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Straight in her heart did mercy come,
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Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
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Was used in giving gentle doom,
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And taught it thus anew to greet:
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'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
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That follow'd it as gentle day
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Doth follow night, who like a fiend
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From heaven to hell is flown away;
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'I hate' from hate away she threw,
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And saved my life, saying 'not you.'
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Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
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[ ] these rebel powers that thee array;
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Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
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Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
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Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
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Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
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Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
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Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
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Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
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And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
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Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
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Within be fed, without be rich no more:
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So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
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And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
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My love is as a fever, longing still
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For that which longer nurseth the disease,
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Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
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The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
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My reason, the physician to my love,
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Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
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Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
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Desire is death, which physic did except.
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Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
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And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
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My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
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At random from the truth vainly express'd;
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For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
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Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
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O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,
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Which have no correspondence with true sight!
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Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
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That censures falsely what they see aright?
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If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
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What means the world to say it is not so?
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If it be not, then love doth well denote
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Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'
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How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
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That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
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No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
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The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
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O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
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Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
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Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
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When I against myself with thee partake?
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Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
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Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?
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Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
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On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
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Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
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Revenge upon myself with present moan?
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What merit do I in myself respect,
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That is so proud thy service to despise,
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When all my best doth worship thy defect,
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Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
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But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
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Those that can see thou lovest, and I am blind.
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O, from what power hast thou this powerful might
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With insufficiency my heart to sway?
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To make me give the lie to my true sight,
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And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
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Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
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That in the very refuse of thy deeds
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There is such strength and warrantize of skill
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That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?
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Who taught thee how to make me love thee more
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The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
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O, though I love what others do abhor,
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With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:
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If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
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More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
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Love is too young to know what conscience is;
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Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
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Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
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Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
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For, thou betraying me, I do betray
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My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
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My soul doth tell my body that he may
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Triumph in love; flesh stays no father reason;
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But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee
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As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
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He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
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To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
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No want of conscience hold it that I call
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Her 'love' for whose dear love I rise and fall.
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In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
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But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing,
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In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
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In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
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But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
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When I break twenty? I am perjured most;
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For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee
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And all my honest faith in thee is lost,
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For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
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Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
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And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
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Or made them swear against the thing they see;
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For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured I,
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To swear against the truth so foul a lie!
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Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:
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A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
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And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
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In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
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Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love
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A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
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And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
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Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
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But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,
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The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;
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I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,
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And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
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But found no cure: the bath for my help lies
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Where Cupid got new fire--my mistress' eyes.
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The little Love-god lying once asleep
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Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
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Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep
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Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
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The fairest votary took up that fire
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Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;
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And so the general of hot desire
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Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd.
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This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
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Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
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Growing a bath and healthful remedy
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For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
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Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
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