Classic Poem

Fond that I am like Greekish Wrastler vaine,
Striving to lift a waight impossible,
I caught so strange incurable a straine,
As thereby (brused sore) I brainsick fell:
Fixing my thoughts above my reach, I fall
Into Disease, without recure at all.

The stately Cedar whose tops seeme in show,
For height, to reach unto the azur'd skie,
Never his head bowes to the shrubs below,
That in the deepe and hollow Valleys lie.
Th'yvie that climing up by th'elme doth runne,
Never can get hold of the beames of Sunne.

ALBA I honor in humilitie,
Whom none ought, or should dare venter to love:
Though I presume with importunitie,
Sometimes my sute (in vaine) to her to move:
For her affections be immortall, rare,
Her vertues such as infinite they are.

Then suffer me to gaze on ALBA mine,
With my mindes eyes, though absent now she be:
I knew when I enjoyde her sight (ah happie time)
That time (I feare) I never more shall see.
But tis all one, for were the Cruell here,
I of my purpose should be nere the neere.