LOVE IS DEAD
Ring out your bells! let mourning shows be spread!
For Love is dead.
All love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain:
Worth, as naught worth, rejected,
And faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female phrenzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord! deliver us.
Weep, neighbours! weep: do you not hear it said
That Love is dead?
His death-bed peacock’s folly,
His winding-sheet is shame,
His will false seeming holy,
His sole executor blame.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female phrenzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord! deliver us.
Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read!
For Love is dead.
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth,
My Mistress’ marble heart;
Which epitaph containeth—
“Her eyes were once his dart.”
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female phrenzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord! deliver us.
Alas! I lie: rage hath this error bred:
Love is not dead.
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatched mind,
Where she his counsel keepeth
Till due deserts she find.
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a phrenzy
Who love can temper thus,
Good Lord! deliver us.
Sir Philip Sidney