Classic Poem

WHEREIN HE PROTESTS HE CANNOT MUCH LONGER ENDURE HER EXTREME WHIMS

Than breast of bear, or tiger's heart more fierce
Looms that angelic shape in human guise,
Who, between dread and hope, from songs to sighs
So shakes me, torturing doubt to savage tears.
It cannot be but soon, if thus she veers
Between the two extremes contrariwise,
By the sweet poison that her whims devise,
My life, O Love, will be in sad arrears.
No longer can my virtue, ravaged thin
'Twixt such contending, hot and cold at once,
Now faint, now fiery, hope by flight to win
A stop to grief, like him whom sweet death shuns
Hour by hour, though hour by hour he feels
Death hovering on remote implacable heels!