Classic Poem

If high excess of unrelenting smart
Enforce not words to fail and thoughts to faint;
My love would now convince both tongue and heart
To say farewell unto my sweetest saint.
But while affection would my woes reveal,
And say unto my dearest heart farewell,
My senses are so suffocate with care,
They sigh, they groan, then say nothing but “fair.”

Then fairest fair, read in my sighs and tears
The secret anguish of thy dying slave,
Who, for the love unto thy worth he bears,
Hath consecrate his soul unto the grave;
And now is forc'd from thy disdain to go
Where death may end his never ending woe,
Yet swearing still by all the lights above,
Ten thousand deaths shall never end his love.

And thus resolv'd, I only beg of thee,
Amid my sad exile, this poor relief,
That if thou cannot think with love on me,
Thou would with pity pause upon my grief.
Or if, perhaps, this little seem too much,
As oh, I fear thy rigour shall be such,
That when some friend my name to mind shall call,
Thou'lt only sigh and wish me well, that's all.