Canst thou, O cruel! fay I love thee not,
When I against myself with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy fake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with prefent moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;
Those that can see thou lovest, and I am blind.
O, from what power hast thou this powerful might With infufficiency my heart to sway?
To make me give the lie to my true fight,
And fwear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence haft thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That, in my mind, thy worst all beft exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and fee just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:
If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
More worthy I to be beloved of thee.
Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Left guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my grofs body's treason;
My foul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rifing at thy name doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To ftand in thy affairs, fall by thy fide.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her 'love' for whofe dear love I rife and fall.
In loving thee thou know'st I am forfworn,
But thou art twice forfworn, to me love fwearing;
In at thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most ;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is loft:
For I have fworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy conftancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them fwear against the thing they fee;
For I have fworn thee fair; more perjured I,
To fwear against the truth so foul a lie!
Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep :
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love
A dateless lively heat, ftill to endure,
And grew a feething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a fovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my
breast;
I, fick withal, the help of bath defired,
And thither hied, a fad diftemper'd guest,
But found no cure: the bath for my help lies
Where Cupid got new fire, my mistress' eyes.
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