Classic Poem

Fortune, Nature, Loue, long haue contended about me,
Which should most miseries cast on a worme that I am
Fortune thus'gan say: miserye and misfortune is all one,
And of misfortune Fortune hath onely the gift.
With strong foes on land, on sea with contrarie tempests,
Still doe I crosse this wretch, what so he taketh in hand.
Tush, tush, said Nature, this is all but a trifle; a man's selfe
Giues haps or mishaps, eu'n as he ordereth his heart.
But so his humor I frame, in a mould of choler adusted,
That the delights of life shall be to him dolorous
Loue smiled, and thus said: Want ioyn'd to desire is vnhappie;
But if he nought doe desire, what can Heraclitus aile?
None but I workes by desire: by desire haue I kindled in his soule
Infernall agonies into a beautie diuine:
Where thou, poore Nature, left'st all thy due glorie; to Fortune,
Her vertue is soueraigne, Fortune a vassall of hers.
Nature abasht went backe: Fortune blusht: yet she replide thus:
And eu'n in that loue shall I reserue him a spite.
Thus, thus, alas, wofull by Nature, vnhappie by Fortune,
But most wretched I am, now Loue awakes my desire.