| |
| O, LET me not serve so, as those men serve, | |
| Whom honour’s smokes at once fatten and starve, | |
| Poorly enrich’d with great men’s words or looks; | |
| Nor so write my name in thy loving books | |
| As those idolatrous flatterers, which still | 5 |
| Their princes’ style with many realms 1 fulfil, | |
| Whence they no tribute have, and where no sway. 2 | |
| Such services I offer as shall pay | |
| Themselves; I hate dead names. O, then let me | |
| Favourite in ordinary, or no favourite be. | 10 |
| When my soul was in her own body sheathed, | |
| Not yet by oaths betroth’d, nor kisses breathed | |
| Into my purgatory, faithless thee, | |
| Thy heart seemed wax, and steel thy constancy. | |
| So careless flowers strew’d on the water’s face | 15 |
| The curled whirlpools suck, smack, and embrace, | |
| Yet drown them; so the taper’s beamy eye | |
| Amorously twinkling beckons the giddy fly, | |
| Yet burns his wings; and such the devil is, | |
| Scarce visiting them who are entirely his. | 20 |
| When I behold a stream, which from the spring | |
| Doth with doubtful melodious murmuring, | |
| Or in a speechless slumber, calmly ride | |
| Her wedded channel’s bosom, and there chide, 3 | |
| And bend her brows, and swell, if any bough | 25 |
| Do but stoop down to kiss her utmost brow; | |
| Yet, if her often gnawing kisses win | |
| The traitorous banks to gape, and let her in, | |
| She rusheth violently, and doth divorce | |
| Her from her native and her long-kept course, | 30 |
| And roars, and braves it, and in gallant scorn, | |
| In flattering eddies promising return, | |
| She flouts her channel, which thenceforth is dry; | |
| Then say I; “That is she, and this am I.” | |
| Yet let not thy deep bitterness beget | 35 |
| Careless despair in me, for that will whet | |
| My mind to scorn; and O, 4 love dull’d with pain | |
| Was ne’er so wise, nor well arm’d, as disdain. | |
| Then with new eyes I shall survey thee, and spy 5 | |
| Death in thy cheeks, and darkness in thine eye, | 40 |
| Though hope bred 6 faith and love; thus taught, I shall, | |
| As nations do from Rome, from thy love fall; | |
| My hate shall outgrow thine, and utterly | |
| I will renounce thy dalliance; and when I | |
| Am the recusant, in that resolute state | 45 |
| What hurts it me to be excommunicate? | |
