Classic Poem

I.

Be Friend or Foe,
More Kindness show,
Or show me yet more kind Disdain;
 Your Torturing Indifference,
  Worse than your Scorn,
  Is to be born,
 My Passion does to Rage Incense;
To make us, of your Mercy, more complain,
When constant Cruelty wou'd end our Pain:

II.

  If I must Die,
  Kill suddenly,
If Sentence on my Life must pass;
 I, by more Grief, more Ease shall gain,
  Dispatch in Love,
  As Death will prove,
 But much more Pity, as more Pain;
More Cruelty, more Mercy were, and Grace,
By which, vain Hope, and certain Fear, wou'd cease:

III.

  To end my Care,
  Give soon Despair,
To make me less of thee complain;
 Give no more Hopes, if no more Love,
  In Mercy, do
  More Cruel grow,
 Thy Kindness to me, more to prove;
Since Love, like Cordials given us, in vain,
More cruel is, prolonging Life, by Pain.