Prometheus for stealing living fire From heaven's king, was judged eternal death; In self-same flame with unrelenting ire Bound fast to Caucasus' low foot beneath. So I, for stealing living beauty's fire Into my verse that it may always live, And change his forms to shapes of my desire, Thou beauty's queen, self sentence like dost give. Bound to thy feet in chains of life I lie; For to thine eyes I never dare aspire; And in thy beauty's brightness do I fry, As poor Prometheus in the scalding fire; Which tears maintain as oil the lamp revives; Only my succour in thy favour lies. THE SIXTH DECADE I One sun unto my life's day gives true light. One moon dissolves my stormy night of woes. One star my fate and happy fortune shows. One saint I serve, one shrine with vows I dight. One sun transfix'd hath burnt my heart outright, One moon opposed my love in darkness throws. One star hath bid my thoughts my wrongs disclose. Saints scorn poor swains, shrines do my vows no right. Yet if my love be found a holy fire, Pure, unstained, without idolatry, And she nathless in hate of my desire, Lives to repose her in my misery, My sun, my moon, my star, my saint, my shrine, Mine be the torment but the guilt be thine! II To live in hell, and heaven to behold; To welcome life, and die a living death; To sweat with heat, and yet be freezing cold; To grasp at stars, and lie the earth beneath; To treat a maze that never shall have end; To burn in sighs, and starve in daily tears; To climb a hill, and never to descend; Giants to kill, and quake at childish fears; To pine for food, and watch th' Hesperian tree; To thirst for drink, and nectar still to draw; To live accurs'd whom men hold blest to be, And weep those wrongs which never creature saw: If this be love, if love in these be founded, My heart is love, for these in it are grounded. III A carver, having loved too long in vain, Hewed out the portraiture of Venus' son In marble rock, upon the which did rain Small drizzling drops, that from a fount did run: Imagining the drops would either wear His fury out, or quench his living flame; But when he saw it bootless did appear, He swore the water did augment the same. So I, that seek in verse to carve thee out, Hoping thy beauty will my flame allay, Viewing my verse and poems all throughout, Find my will rather to my love obey, That with the carver I my work do blame, Finding it still th' augmenter of my flame. IV