The True Love's Knot

Love is the link, the knot, the band of unity;
And all that love, do love with their beloved to be.
Love only did decree,
To change his kind in me.
For though I loved with all the powers of my mind,
And though my restless thoughts their rest in her did find,
Yet are my hopes declined,
Sith she is most unkind.
For since her beauty's sun my fruitless hope did breed,
By absence from that sun I hoped to starve that weed;
Though absence did indeed
My hopes not starve, but feed.
For when I shift my place, like to the stricken deer,
I cannot shift the shaft, which in my-side I bear:
Ay me it resteth there,
The cause is not elsewhere.
So have I seen the sick to turn and turn again,
As if that outward change could ease his inward pain:
But still, alas! in vain,
The fit doth still remain.
Yet goodness is the spring from whence this ill doth grow,
For goodness caused the love, which great respect did owe.
Respect true love did show:
True love thus wrought my woe.
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