| |
| MY mistress lowers, and saith I do not love! | |
| I do protest, and seek with service due, | |
| In humble mind, a constant faith to prove: | |
| But for all this, I cannot her remove | |
| From deep vain thought that I may not be true. | 5 |
| |
| If oaths might serve, even by the Stygian lake, | |
| Which poets say, the gods themselves do fear, | |
| I never did my vowed word forsake. | |
| For why should I; whom free choice, slave doth make? | |
| Else what in face, than in my fancy bear. | 10 |
| |
| My Muse therefore—for only thou canst tell— | |
| Tell me the cause of this my causeless woe? | |
| Tell how ill thought disgraced my doing well? | |
| Tell how my joys and hopes, thus foully fell | |
| To so low ebb, that wonted were to flow? | 15 |
| |
| O this it is! The knotted straw is found! | |
| In tender hearts, small things engender hate. | |
| A horse’s worth laid waste the Trojan ground. | |
| A three-foot stool, in Greece, made trumpets sound. | |
| An ass’s shade, ere now, hath bred debate. | 20 |
| |
| If Greeks themselves were moved with so small cause | |
| To twist those broils, which hardly would untwine: | |
| Should ladies fair be tied to such hard laws, | |
| As in their moods to take a lingering pause? | |
| I would it not. Their metal is too fine. | 25 |
| |
| “My hand doth not bear witness with my heart,” | |
| She saith, “because I make no woful lays, | |
| To paint my living death, and endless smart.” | |
| And so, for one that felt god CUPID’s dart, | |
| She thinks I lead and live too merry days. | 30 |
| |
| Are poets then, the only lovers true? | |
| Whose hearts are set on measuring a verse; | |
| Who think themselves well blest, if they renew | |
| Some good old dump, that CHAUCER’s mistress knew; | |
| And use you but for matters to rehearse. | 35 |
| |
| Then, good APOLLO! do away thy bow! | |
| Take harp! and sing in this our versing time! | |
| And in my brain some sacred humour flow, | |
| That all the earth my woes, sighs, tears may know. | |
| And see you not, that I fall now to rhyme! | 40 |
| |
| As for my mirth—how could I but be glad | |
| Whilst that, me thought, I justly made my boast | |
| That only I, the only mistress had. | |
| But now, if e’er my face with joy be clad; | |
| Think HANNIBAL did laugh, when Carthage lost! | 45 |
| |
| Sweet Lady! As for those whose sullen cheer, | |
| Compared to me, made me in lightness found; | |
| Who Stoic-like in cloudy hue appear; | |
| Who silence force, to make their words more dear; | |
| Whose eyes seem chaste, because they look on ground: | 50 |
| Believe them not! For physic true doth find, | |
| Choler adust is joyed in womankind. | |
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