My dearest Sweet, if these sad lines do hap
The raging fury of the sea to 'scape,
Oh be not you more cruel than the seas,
Let pity now your angry mind appease;
be their blessed port,
your hand may
So that
From whence they may unto your eyes resort;
And at that throne pleading my
wretched case,
May move your cruel heart to yield me grace.
So may no clouds of elder years obscure
Your sun-like eyes, but still as bright endure,
As then they shone when with one piercing ray
They made my self their slave, my heart their prey;
So may no sickness nip those flowers sweet,
Which ever flowering on your cheeks do meet :
Nor all defacing time have power to 'rase,
The goodly building of that heavenly face.
Fountain of bliss, yet well-spring of my woe,
Oh would I might not justly term you so!
Alas, your cruel dealing, and my fate,
Have now reduc'd me to that wretched state,
That I know not how I my style may frame
To thanks, or grudging; or, to praise, or blame:
And where to write I all my powers do bend,
There wot I not how to begin or end.
And now my drizzling tears trill down apace,
As if the latter would the former chase,
Whereof some few on my pale cheeks remain,
Like wither'd flowers, bedew'd with drops of rain:
The other falling in my paper sink,
Or dropping in my pen increase my ink.
Which sudden passion's cause if you would find,
A trembling fear doth now possess my mind,
That you will not vouchsafe these lines to read,
Lest they some pity in your heart may breed:
But, or with angry frowns refuse to take them,
Or taking them the fire's fuel make them:
Or, with those hands, made to a milder end,
These guiltless leaves all into pieces rend.
O cruel Tyrant! yet beloved still,
Wherein have I deserv'd of you so ill,
That all my love should with hate requite,
And all my pains reward with such despite?
Or if my fault be great, which I protest
Is only love, too great to be exprest,
What, have these lines so harmless, innocent,
Deserv'd to feel their master's punishment?
These leaves are not unto my fault consenting,
And therefore ought not to have the same tormenting.
When you have read them, use them as you list,
For by your sight they shall be fully blest:
But till you read them, let the woes I have,
This harmless paper from your fury save.
Clear up, mine eyes, and dry yourselves, my tears,
And thou, my heart, banish these deadly fears:
Persuade thyself, that though her heart disdain
Either to love thy love, or rue thy pain,
Yet her fair eyes will not a look deny
To this sad story of thy misery.
Oh then, my dear, behold the portraiture
Of him that doth all kind of woes endure;
Of him whose head is made a hive of woes,
Whose swarming number daily greater grows;
Of him whose senses like a rack are bent,
With diverse motions my poor soul to rent;
Whose mind a mirror is, which only shews
The ugly image of my present woes:
Whose memory's a poison'd knife to tear
The ever bleeding wound my breast doth bear;
The ever bleeding wound not to be cured,
But by those eyes that first the same procured.
And that poor heart, so faithful, constant, true,
That only loves, and serves, and honours you,
Is like a feeble ship, which, torn and rent,
The mast of hope being broke, and tackling spent ;
Reason, the pilot, dead, the stars obscured,
By which alone to sail it was enured;
No port, no land, no comfort once expected,
All hope of safety utterly neglected;
With dreadful terror tumbling up and down
Passion's uncertain waves with hideous sound,
Doth daily, hourly, minutely expect,
When either it should run, and so be wreck'd,
Upon Despair's sharp rock, or be o'erthrown
With storm of your disdain so fiercely blown.
But yet of all the woes that do torment me,
Of all the torments that do daily rent me,b
There's none so great, although I am assured
That even the least cannot be long endured,
As that so many weeks, nay months and years,
Nay tedious
ages, for it so appears,
My trembling heart, besides so many anguishes,
"Twixt hope and fear uncertain, hourly languishes :
Whether your hands, your eyes, your heart of stone,
Did take my lines, and read them, and bemoan
With one kind word, one sigh, one pitying tear,
Th' unfeigned grief which you do make me bear,
b But yet of all the woes that do torment my heart,
Of all the torments that do daily rent my heart.-edit. 1602. c Th' unfeigned grief which for your love I bear.-ibid.
Whether y' accepted that last monument
Of my dear love, the book I mean, I sent
To your dear self, when the respectless wind
Bore me away, leaving my heart behind.
And deign, sometimes, when you the same do view,
To think on him who always thinks on you:
Or whether you, as oh, I fear you do,
Hate both my self, and gifts, and letters too.
I must confess, Unkind, when I consider,d
How ill, alas, how ill agree together,
So peerless beauty to so fierce a mind,
So hard an inside to so fair a rind,
A heart so bloody to so white a breast,
So proud disdain with so mild looks supprest;
And how, my dear, oh, would it had been never,
Accursed word! nay would it might be ever:
How once, I say, till our heart was estranged,
Alas, how soon my day to night was changed!
You did vouchsafe my poor eyes so much grace,
Freely to view the riches of your face,
And did so high exalt my lowly heart,
To call it yours, and take it in good part,
And, which was greatest bliss, did not disdain,
For boundless love to yield some love again.
d I must confess (unkind) when I do consider-edit. 1602.
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