O! never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify, As easy might I from my self depart As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love: if I have rang’d, Like him that travels, I return again; Just to the time, not with the time exchang’d, So that myself bring water for my stain. Never believe though in my nature reign’d, All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, That it could so preposterously be stain’d, To leave for nothing all thy sum of good; For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all. CX Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there, And made my self a motley to the view, Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new; Most true it is, that I have look’d on truth Askance and strangely; but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth, And worse essays prov’d thee my best of love. Now all is done, save what shall have no end: Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof, to try an older friend, A god in love, to whom I am confin’d. Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even to thy pure and most most loving breast. CXI O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdu’d To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand: Pity me, then, and wish I were renew’d; Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink, Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection; No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance, to correct correction. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye, Even that your pity is enough to cure me. CXII Your love and pity doth the impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow; For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow? You are my all-the-world, and I must strive To know my shames and praises from your tongue; None else to me, nor I to none alive, That my steel’d sense or changes right or wrong. In so profound abysm I throw all care Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense To critic and to flatterer stopped are. Mark how with my neglect I do dispense: You are so strongly in my purpose bred, That all the world besides methinks are dead. CXIII