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| WHY do I love? go ask the glorious sun | |
| Why every day it round the world doth run: | |
| Ask Thames and Tiber why they ebb and flow: | |
| Ask damask roses why in June they blow: | |
| Ask ice and hail the reason why they’re cold: | 5 |
| Decaying beauties, why they will grow old: | |
| They’ll tell thee, Fate, that everything doth move, | |
| Inforces them to this, and me to love. | |
| There is no reason for our love or hate, | |
| ’Tis irresistible as Death or Fate; | 10 |
| ’Tis not his face; I’ve sense enough to see, | |
| That is not good, though doated on by me: | |
| Nor is’t his tongue, that has this conquest won, | |
| For that at least is equalled by my own: | |
| His carriage can to none obliging be, | 15 |
| ’Tis rude, affected, full of vanity: | |
| Strangely ill natur’d, peevish and unkind, | |
| Unconstant, false, to jealousy inclin’d: | |
| His temper could not have so great a power, | |
| ’Tis mutable, and changes every hour: | 20 |
| Those vigorous years that women so adore | |
| Are past in him: he ’s twice my age and more; | |
| And yet I love this false, this worthless man, | |
| With all the passion that a woman can; | |
| Doat on his imperfections, though I spy | 25 |
| Nothing to love; I love, and know not why. | |
| Since ’tis decreed in the dark book of Fate, | |
| That I should love, and he should be ingrate. | |
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