Love doth again Put me to pain And yet all is but lost, I serve in vain And am certain Of all misliked most. Both heat and cold Doth so me hold And cumber so my mind, That when I should Speak and behold It driveth me still behind. My wits be past, My life doth waste, My comfort is exiled, And I in haste Am like to taste How love hath me beguiled. Unless that right May in her sight Obtain pity and grace, Why should a wight Have beauty bright If mercy have no place? Yet I, alas, Am in such case That back I cannot go, But still forth trace A patient pace And suffer secret woe. For with the wind My fired mind Doth still inflame; And she unkind That did me bind Doth turn it all to game. Yet can no pain Make me refrain Nor here and there to range; I shall retain Hope to obtain Her heart that is so strange. But I require The painful fire That oft doth make me sweat, For all my ire, With like desire To give her heart a heat. Then shall she prove How I her love And what I have offered, Which should her move For to remove The pains that I have suffered. And better fee Than she gave me She shall of me attain. For whereas she Showed cruelty, She shall my heart obtain. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO ANTHEA [WHO MAY COMMAND HIM ANYTHING] by ROBERT HERRICK HAIL COLUMBIA by JOSEPH HOPKINSON THE MARYLAND BATTALION [AUGUST 27, 1776] by JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER WALT WHITMAN by FRANCIS HOWARD WILLIAMS MYRMIDONES: THE WOUNDED EAGLE by AESCHYLUS SEADRIFT by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE MODEST WISH by JOHN BARCLAY (1582-1621) |