_An excuse to his mistress for resolving to love so worthy a creature_ Blame not my heart for flying up so high, Sith thou art cause that it this flight begun; For earthly vapours drawn up by the sun, Comets become, and night suns in the sky. Mine humble heart, so with thy heavenly eye Drawn up aloft, all low desires doth shun; Raise thou me up, as thou my heart hast done, So during night in heaven remain may I. I say again, blame not my high desire, Sith of us both the cause thereof depends. In thee doth shine, in me doth burn a fire, Fire draws up other, and itself ascends. Thine eye a fire, and so draws up my love; My love a fire, and so ascends above. III _Of the birth of his love_ Fly low, dear love, thy sun dost thou not see? Take heed, do not so near his rays aspire; Lest, for thy pride, inflamed with wreakful ire, It burn thy wings, as it hath burned me. Thou haply sayst thy wings immortal be, And so cannot consumed be with fire; And one is hope, the other is desire, And that the heavens bestowed them both on thee. A muse's words made thee with hope to fly, An angel's face desire hath begot, Thyself engendered by a goddess' eye; Yet for all this, immortal thou art not. Of heavenly eye though thou begotten art, Yet art thou born but of a mortal heart. IV _Of his mistress, upon occasion of a friend of his which dissuaded him from loving_ A friend of mine, pitying my hopeless love, Hoping by killing hope my love to stay, "Let not," quoth he, "thy hope, thy heart betray; Impossible it is her heart to move." But sith resolved love cannot remove As long as thy divine perfections stay, Thy godhead then he sought to take away. Dear, seek revenge and him a liar prove; Gods only do impossibilities. "Impossible," saith he, "thy grace to gain." Show then the power of divinities By granting me thy favour to obtain. So shall thy foe give to himself the lie; A goddess thou shall prove, and happy I! V _Of the conspiracy of his lady's eyes and his own to engender love_ Thine eye the glass where I behold my heart, Mine eye the window through the which thine eye May see my heart, and there thyself espy In bloody colours how thou painted art. Thine eye the pile is of a murdering dart; Mine eye the sight thou tak'st thy level by To hit my heart, and never shoot'st awry. Mine eye thus helps thine eye to work my smart. Thine eye a fire is both in heat and light; Mine eye of tears a river doth become. O that the water of mine eye had might To quench the flames that from thine eye doth come, Or that the fires kindled by thine eye, The flowing streams of mine eyes could make dry. VI _Love's seven deadly sins_