Behold what hap Pygmalion had to frame
And carve his proper grief upon a stone;
My heavy fortune is much like the same:
I work on flint, and that's the cause I moan.
For hapless, lo, ev'n with mine own desires,
I figur'd on the table of my heart
The fairest form, the world's eye admires,
And so did perish by my proper art.
And still I toil, to change the marble breast
Of her, whose sweetest grace I do adore,
Yet cannot find her breath unto my rest:
Hard is her heart, and woe is me, therefore.

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to cast light upon each?
I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach
My hand to hold my spirit so far off
From myself.. me.. that I should bring thee proof,
In words of love hid in me...out of reach.
Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
Commend my woman-love to thy belief,
Seeing that I stand unwon (however wooed)
And rend the garment of my life in brief

Thou poor heart sacrific'd unto the fairest,
Hast sent the incense of thy sighs to heav'n;
And still against her frowns fresh vows repairest,
And made thy passions with her beauty ev'n.
And you mine eyes, the agents of my heart,
Told the dumb message of my hidden grief,
And oft with careful turns, with silent art,
Did treat the cruel Fair to yield relief.
And you my verse, the advocates of love,
Have follow'd hard the process of my case,
And urg'd that title which doth plainly prove
My faith should win, if justice might have place.

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Electra her sepulchral urn,
And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn
The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see
What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,
And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn
Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn
Could tread them out to darkness utterly,
It might be well perhaps. But if instead
Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow
The grey dust up,...those laurels on thine head,
O my Belovèd, will not shield thee so,
That none of all the fires shall scorch and shred

O, ever skilled to wear the form we love!
To bid the shapes of fear and grief depart;
Come, gentle Hope! with one gay smile remove
The lasting sadness of an aching heart.
Thy voice, benign Enchantress! let me hear;
Say that for me some pleasures yet shall bloom,--
That Fancy's radiance, Friendship's precious tear,
Shall soften, or shall chase, misfortune's gloom.
But come not glowing in the dazzling ray,
Which once with dear illusions charm'd my eye,--
O! strew no more, sweet flatterer! on my way
The flowers I fondly thought too bright to die;

Lo, here the impost of a faith unfeigning
That love hath paid, and her disdain extorted,
Behold the message of my just complaining
That shows the world how much my grief imported.
These tributary plaints fraught with desire,
I send those eyes the cabinets of love;
The Paradise whereto my hopes aspire
From out this hell, which mine afflictions prove.
Wherein I thus do live cast down from mirth,
Pensive alone, none but despair about me;
My joys abortive, perish'd at their birth,
My cares long liv'd and will not die without me.

Yet read at last the story of my woe,
The dreary abstracts of my endless cares,
With my life's sorrow interlined so,
Smok'd with my sighs and blotted with my tears,
The sad memorials of my miseries,
Penn'd in the grief of mine afflicted ghost,
My life's complaint in doleful elegies,
With so pure love as Time could never boast.
Receive the incense which I offer here,
By my strong faith ascending to thy fame,
My zeal, my hope, my vows, my praise, my prayer,
My soul's oblation to thy sacred name,

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to death, in silent darkness born,
Relieve my languish and restore the light,
With dark forgetting of my cares' return.
And let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwrack of my ill-adventur'd youth;
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn
Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Cease Dreams, th'imagery of our day desires,
To model forth the passions of the morrow;
Never let the rising Sun approve you liars,
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow.

At the Author's Going into Italy

O whether (poor forsaken) wilt thou go,
To go from sorrow and thine own distress,
When every place presents the face of woe,
And no remove can make thy sorrow less?
Yet go (forsaken), leave these woods, these plains;
Leave her and all, and all for her that leaves
Thee and thy love forlorn, and both disdains,
And of both wrongful deems and ill conceives.
Seek out some place, and see if any place
Give give the least release unto thy grief,
Convey thee from the thought of thy disgrace,

These plaintive verses, the Posts of my desire,
Which haste for succour to her slow regard:
Bear not report of any slender fire,
Forging a grief to win a fame's reward.
Nor are my passions limn'd for outward hue,
For that no colors can depaint my sorrows;
Delia herself and all the world may view
Best in my face, how cares hath till'd deep forrows.
No Bays I seek to deck my mourning brow,
O clear-eyed Rector of the holy Hill;
My humble accents crave the Olive bough,
Of her mild pity and relenting will.