That Love at length should find me out and bring This fierce and trivial brow unto the dust, Is, after all, I must confess, but just; There is a subtle beauty in this thing, A wry perfection; wherefore now let sing All voices how into my throat is thrust, Unwelcome as Death’s own, Love’s bitter crust, All criers proclaim it, and all steeples ring. This being done, there let the matter rest. What more remains is neither here nor there. That you requite me not is plain to see; Myself your slave herein have I confessed: Thus far, indeed, the world may mock at me; But if I suffer, it is my own affair. IV-III LOVE IS NOT BLIND Love is not blind. I see with single eye Your ugliness and other women’s grace. I know the imperfection of your face,-- The eyes too wide apart, the brow too high For beauty. Learned from earliest youth am I In loveliness, and cannot so erase Its letters from my mind, that I may trace You faultless, I must love until I die. More subtle is the sovereignty of love: So am I caught that when I say, “Not fair,” ’Tis but as if I said, “Not here--not there-- Not risen--not writing letters.” Well I know What is this beauty men are babbling of; I wonder only why they prize it so. IV-IV I KNOW I AM BUT SUMMER I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring. Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime. IV-V I PRAY YOU IF YOU LOVE ME I pray you if you love me, bear my joy A little while, or let me weep your tears; I, too, have seen the quavering Fate destroy Your destiny’s bright spinning--the dull shears Meeting not neatly, chewing at the thread,-- Nor can you well be less aware how fine, How staunch as wire, and how unwarranted Endures the golden fortune that is mine. I pray you for this day at least, my dear, Fare by my side, that journey in the sun; Else must I turn me from the blossoming year And walk in grief the way that you have gone. Let us go forth together to the spring: Love must be this, if it be anything. IV-VI PITY ME NOT