Classic Poem

LAURA'S EYES ARE STRICKEN WITH A STRANGE MALADY

I lived so much at peace, so well content,
No sorrow knocked, no envy opened door;
If fortune favoured other Loves the more,
One pang of mine outweighed their increment.
But those eyes from whose beauty I repent
Never my wounds, nor their long siege deplore,
So dark, so heavy clouds upon them pour,
My life is drowned in them and quite forespent.
O Nature, mother hard and merciful,
Whence comes thy power, whence thy whims perverse
As this that in one breath will bless and curse?
One fountain thus sustains and renders null:
Yet how couldst Thou, Lord of the Universe,
Give wings for flight — then blind the soaring gull?