Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; Lest sorrow lend me words and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so; As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know; For if I should despair, I should grow mad, And in my madness might speak ill of thee: Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be, That I may not be so, nor thou belied, Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CATS' MONTH by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS WASHINGTON MONUMENT BY NIGHT by CARL SANDBURG THE NEW YEAR by ALFRED TENNYSON THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THE PEN by GHALIB IBN RIBAH AL-HAJJAM A SONNET. ON THE PICTURE OF CAVALIER GUARINI PAINTED BY BORGIANNI by PHILIP AYRES |