XI
WHEREFORE should I mine own heart not unfold,
And his true workings to the world disclose?
Why self-unlocking for unseemly hold,
Which me, as I show’d others, human shows?
If I to Nature held her truthful glass,
And on the stage life’s self did strive to set,
Creating thousand shadows that should pass
For very substance when men’s eyes they met;
If there I imag’d love, hate, doubt, and trust,
If all the pageant of the mortal heart,
Might not one say: ‘This man within him must
Have learn’d from Nature what he shap’d in art’?
All passions’ depths he only can reveal
Who doth them all within him living feel.
