Sitting alone, loue bids me goe and write;
Reason plucks backe, commaunding me to stay,
Boasting that shee doth still direct the way,
Els senceles loue could neuer once indite.
Loue, growing angry, vexed at the spleene,
And scorning Reasons maymed Argument,
Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent
Where shee with Loue conuersing hath not beene.
Reason, reproched with this coy disdaine,
Dispighteth Loue, and laugheth at her folly,
And Loue, contemning Reasons reason wholy,
Thought her in weight too light by many a graine.
Reason, put back, doth out of sight remoue,
And Loue alone finds reason in my loue.
Amour 32
Those teares, which quench my hope, still kindle my desire,
Those sighes, which coole my hart, are coles vnto my loue,
Disdayne, Ice to my life, is to my soule a fire:
With teares, sighes, and disdaine, this contrary I proue.
Quenchles desire makes hope burne, dryes my teares,
Loue heats my hart, my hart-heat my sighes warmeth;
With my soules fire my life disdaine out-weares,
Desire, my loue, my soule, my hope, hart, and life charmeth.
My hope becomes a friend to my desire,
My hart imbraceth Loue, Loue doth imbrace my hart;
My life a Phoenix is in my soules fire,
From thence (they vow) they neuer will depart.
Desire, my loue, my soule, my hope, my hart, my life,
With teares, sighes, and disdaine, shall haue immortal strife.
Amour 33
Whilst thus mine eyes doe surfet with delight,
My wofull hart, imprisond in my breast,
Wishing to be trans-formd into my sight,
To looke on her by whom mine eyes are blest;
But whilst mine eyes thus greedily doe gaze,
Behold! their obiects ouer-soone depart,
And treading in this neuer-ending maze,
Wish now to be trans-formd into my hart:
My hart, surcharg'd with thoughts, sighes in abundance raise,
My eyes, made dim with lookes, poure down a flood of tears;
And whilst my hart and eye enuy each others praise,
My dying lookes and thoughts are peiz'd in equall feares:
And thus, whilst sighes and teares together doe contende,
Each one of these doth ayde vnto the other lende.
Amour 34
My fayre, looke from those turrets of thine eyes,
Into the Ocean of a troubled minde,
Where my poor soule, the Barke of sorrow, lyes,
Left to the mercy of the waues and winde.
See where she flotes, laden with purest loue,
Which those fayre Ilands of thy lookes affoord,
Desiring yet a thousand deaths to proue,
Then so to cast her Ballase ouerboard.
See how her sayles be rent, her tacklings worne,
Her Cable broke, her surest Anchor lost:
Her Marryners doe leaue her all forlorne,
Yet how shee bends towards that blessed Coast!
Loe! where she drownes in stormes of thy displeasure,
Whose worthy prize should haue enricht thy treasure.
Amour 35
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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