CXLVII. My love is as a fever longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease; Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd; For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee

bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night

CXLVIII.

77

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight?
Or, if they have, where is my judginent fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's

eye is not so true as all men's : no, How can it ? O how can Love's

eye

be true,

That is so vexed with watching and with tears ? No marvel then though I mistake my view; The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.

O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind, Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

CXLIX.

Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,
When I, against myself, with thee partake ? 78
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot
Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call

my

friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon ?
Nay if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present 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?

That in the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds ?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O, though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou should'st not abhor my state :

If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,
More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.

CLI.

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,79
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason;
But rising at thy name, doth point out thee
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her-love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

CLII.

In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;

79 amiss) i. e. fault.

In act 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 perjur'd most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost :
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kind-

ness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see;

For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I, To swear, against the truth, so foul a lie !

CLIII.

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, still to endure,
And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at
my mistress'

eye

love's brand new-fir'd, The boy for trial needs would touch my breast; I sick withal, the help of bath desir'a, And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,

But found no cure; the bath for my help lies Where Cupid got new fire; my

mistress' eyes. CLIV. The little love-god lying once asleep, Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to

keep, Came tripping by ; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d: And so the general of hot desire Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd. This brand she quenched in a cool well by, Which from love's fire took heat perpetual, Growing a bath and healthful remedy For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,

Came there for cure, and this by that I prove, Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.