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;
So that your hand may be their blessed port,
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.

II.

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 reduced 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 withered flowers, bedewed 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 deserved of you so ill,
That all my love you 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,
Deserved to feel their master's punishment?
These leaves are not unto my fault consenting,
And therefore ought not have the same tormenting.
When you have read them, use them as you list,
For by your sight they shall be fully blist:
But till you read them, let the woes I have,
This harmless paper from your fury save.

III.

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 divers motions my poor soul to rent;
Whose mind a mirror is, which only shows
The ugly image of my present woes:
Whose memory's a poisoned 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 wrecked,
Upon Despair's sharp rock, or be o'erthrown,
With storm of your disdain so fiercely blown.

IV.

But yet of all the woes that do torment me,
Of all the torments that do daily rent me,
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,
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 did 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.

V.

I must confess, Unkind, when I consither,
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 your 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.
When this, I say, I call unto my mind,
And in my heart and soul no cause can find,
No fact, no word, whereby my heart doth merit,
To lose that love, which once I did inherit,
Despair itself cannot make me despair
But that you'll prove as kind as you are fair,
And that my lines, and book, Oh would 'twere true,
Are, though I know't not yet, received by you;
And often have your cruelty repented,
Whereby my guiltless heart is thus tormented.
And now at length, in lieu of passed woe,
Will pity, kindness, love, and favour show.

VI.

But when again my cursed memory,
To my sad thoughts confounded diversly,
Presents the time, the tear-procuring time,
That withered my young joys before their prime:
The time when I with tedious absence tired,
With restless love and racked desire inspired,
Coming to find my earthly Paradise,
To glass my sight in your two heavenly eyes,
On which alone my earthly joys depended,
And wanting which, my joy and life were ended,
From your sweet rosy lips, the springs of bliss,
To draw the nectar of a sweetest kiss:
My greedy ears on your sweet words to feed,
Which candied in your sugared breath proceed
In daintiest accents through that coral door,
Guarded with precious pearl and rubies' store:
To touch your hand so white, so moist, so soft,
And with a ravished kiss redoubled oft,
Revenge with kindest spite the bloody theft,
Whereby it closely me my heart bereft:
And of all bliss to taste the consummation,
In your sweet, graceful, heavenly conversation,
By whose sweet charms the souls you do enchant
Of all that do your lovely presence haunt:
Instead of all these joys I did expect,
Found nought but frowns, unkindness and neglect.
Neglect, unkindness, frowns? nay, plain contempt,
And open hate, from no disdain exempt;
No bitter words, side-looks, nor aught that might
Engrieve, encrease so undeserved despite.
When this, I say, I think, and think withal
How, nor those show'rs of tears mine eyes let fall,
Nor wind of blustering sighs with all their force,
Could move your rocky heart once to remorse;
Can I expect that letter should find grace,
Or pity ever in your heart have place?
No no, I think, and sad despair says for me,
You hate, disdain, and utterly abhor me.

VII.

Alas, my Dear, if this you do devise,
To try the virtue of your murdering eyes,
And in the glass of bleeding hearts, to view
The glorious splendour of your beauty's hue,
Ah, try it on rebellious hearts, and sprites
That do withstand the power of sacred lights,
And make them feel, if any such be found,
How deep and curelessly your eyes can wound.
But spare, oh spare my yielding heart, and save
Him whose chief glory is to be your slave:
Make me the matter of your clemency,
And not the subject of your tyranny.