Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

CXVI.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempefts and is never shaken;

It is the ftar to every wandering bark,

[taken.

Whole worth's unknown, although his height be Love's not Time's fool, though rofy lips and cheeks Wtihin his bending fickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

CXVII.

Accufe me thus: that I have scanted all
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds, And given to time your own dear-purchased right; That I have hoifted fail to all the winds

Which should transport me farthest from your fight.

Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on juft proof furmise accumulate;

Bring me within the level of your frown,

But shoot not at me in

your waken'd hate;

Since my appeal says I did not strive to prove
The conftancy and virtue of your love.

CXVIII.

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,

We ficken to fhun fickness when we purge;

Even fo, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, To bitter fauces did I frame my feeding;

And fick of welfare found a kind of meetness

To be diseased, ere that there was true needing.

Thus policy in love, to anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults affured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state,

Which, rank of goodnefs, would by ill be cured:

But thence I learn, and find the lesson true, Drugs poifon him that fo fell fick of you.

CXIX.

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Diftill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,
Still lofing when I saw myself to win!

What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilft it hath thought itself so blessed never!

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, In the distraction of this madding fever!

O benefit of ill! now I find true

That better is by evil still made better;

And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. So I return rebuked to my content,

And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.

CXX.

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that forrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my tranfgreffion bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,

As I by yours, you've paff'd a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I fuffer'd in

your crime.

O, that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true forrow hits,
And foon to you, as you to me, then tender'd
The humble falve which wounded bofoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

« НазадПродовжити »