Tears, vows and prayers gain the hardest hearts, Tears, vows and prayers have I spent in vain; Tears cannot soften flint nor vows convert; Prayers prevail not with a quaint disdain. I lose my tears where I have lost my love, I vow my faith where faith is not regarded, I pray in vain a merciless to move; So rare a faith ought better be rewarded. Yet though I cannot win her will with tears, Though my soul's idol scorneth all my vows, Though all my prayers be to so deaf ears, No favour though the cruel Fair allows, Yet will I weep, vow, pray to cruel she; Flint, frost, disdain, wears, melts and yields, we see. XII My spotless love hovers with purest wings About the temple of the proudest frame, Where blaze those lights, fairest of earthly things; Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame. M'ambitious thoughts, confined in her face, Affect no honour but what she can give; My hopes do rest in limits of her grace; I weigh no comfort unless she relieve. For she that can my heart imparadise, Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is. My fortune's wheel's the circle of her eyes, Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss. All my life's sweet consists in her alone, So much I love the most unloving one. XIII 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, even with mine own desires I figured on the table of my heart The fairest form that 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 breathe unto my rest. Hard is her heart, and woe is me therefore. O happy he that joyed his stone and art! Unhappy I, to love a stony heart! XIV Those snary locks are those same nets, my dear, Wherewith my liberty thou didst surprise Love was the flame that fired me so near, The dart transpiercing were those crystal eyes. Strong is the net, and fervent is the flame; Deep is the wound my sighs can well report. Yet I do love, adore, and praise the same, That holds, that burns, that wounds in this sort; And list not seek to break, to quench, to heal, The bond, the flame, the wound that festereth so, By knife, by liquor, or by salve to deal; So much I please to perish in my woe. Yet lest long travails be above my strength, Good Delia, loose, quench, heal me, now at length! XV