Can LOVE be rich, and yet I want? Is LOVE my judge, and yet am I condemned? Thou plenty hast, yet me dost scant! Thou made a god, and yet thy power contemned! That I do live, it is thy power! That I desire, it is thy worth! If love doth make men's lives too sour, Let me not love, nor live henceforth! Die shall my hopes, but not my faith, That you, that of my fall may hearers be, May hear Despair, which truly saith, "I was more true to LOVE, than LOVE to me." * * * * * Can she excuse my wrongs with virtue's cloak? Shall I call her good, when she proves unkind? Are those clear fires, which vanish into smoke? Must I praise the leaves, where no fruit I find? No! No! Where shadows do for bodies stand, Thou may'st be abused, if thy sight be dim. Cold love is like to words written on sand; Or to bubbles, which on the water swim. Wilt thou be abused still, Seeing that she will right thee never? If thou can'st not o'ercome her will, Thy love will be thus fruitless ever! Was I so base, that I might not aspire, Unto those high joys, which she holds from me? As they are high, so high is my desire, If she this deny, what can granted be? If she will yield to that which reason is, It is Reason's will, that Love should be just. Dear! make me happy still, by granting this, Or cut off delays, if that die I must! Better a thousand times to die, Than for to live thus still tormented: Dear! but remember it was I, Who, for thy sake, did die contented. * * * * * Now, O now, I needs must part, Parting, though I absent mourn; Absence can no joy impart, Joy once fled, cannot return. While I live, I needs must love, Love lives not, when hope is gone. Now at last despair doth prove Love divided, loveth none. Sad despair doth drive me hence, This despair, unkindness sends; If that parting be offence, It is she which then offends. Dear! when I from thee am gone, Gone are all my joys at once. I loved thee, and thee alone! In whose love I joyed once: And although your sight I leave, Sight wherein my joys do lie; Till that death do sense bereave, Never shall affection die! Sad despair doth drive me hence, _&c._ Dear! if I do not return, Love and I shall die together. For my absence never mourn! Whom you might have joyed ever. Part we must, though now I die, Die I do, to part with you: Him despair doth cause to lie Who both lived and dieth true. Sad despair doth drive me hence, _&c._ * * * * *