For no torture 'tis for me To be callèd fickle, vain, If I may behold again My neck from the mad yoke free; Who Silena is, I know, And how strange her mood hath been, How her peaceful face serene Promise and deceit doth show. To her wondrous dignity, To her fair and downcast eyes, 'Tis not much to yield the prize Of the will, whose'er it be, For at first sight we adore; Now we know her, fain would we Life and more, if more could be, Give to see her nevermore. Ofttimes to her have I given Heaven's Silena and my dear For her name--she was so fair That she seemed the child of Heaven; Better now her name shall be-- Now that I need fear no more-- Not Silena, Heaven's flower, But false Siren of the sea. Earnest words, frivolities, Gazing eyes and ardent pen Of the lover, blind and vain,-- Take a countless sum of these, And the last is ever first; Whoso hath in love surpassed, As the first loved, e'en at last Is by her disdain accursed. How much fairer would we deem Our Silena's beauteous grace, If her wisdom and her ways Did her fairness but beseem! She discretion hath at will, But a halter 'tis to slay The presumption of her way, For she useth it so ill. I speak not with shameless tongue, For it were but passion wild, But I speak as one beguiled, Who hath suffered grievous wrong; Passion doth no more me blind, Nor desire that she should wrong Suffer, for always my tongue Was in reason's bonds confined. Her caprices manifold, And her moods that ever change, From her every hour estrange Those who were her friends of old; Since Silena foes hath made In the many ways we see, Wholly good she cannot be, Or they must be wholly bad.