On Cupid's bow how are my heart-strings bent, That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same! When most I glory, then I feel most shame: I willing run, yet while I run, repent. My best wits still their own disgrace invent; My very ink turns straight to Stella's name; And yet my words, as them my pen doth frame, Avise themselves that they are vainly spent. For though she pass all things, yet what is all That unto me, who fare like him that both Looks to the skies, and in a ditch doth fall? O let me prop my mind, yet in his growth, And not in nature for best fruits unfit. 'Scholar,' saith Love, 'bend hitherward your wit.' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO A POET, WHO WOULD HAVE ME PRAISE CERTAIN BAD POETS, IMITATORS ... by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS SOTTO VOCE; TO EDWARD THOMAS by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE A GAGE D'AMOUR by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON MADRIGAL by WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG NYMPH GOING TO BED by JONATHAN SWIFT TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY MEMORY OF THE FAIREST AND MOST VIRTUOUS LADY by WILLIAM BOSWORTH |