Needs must I leave and yet needs must I love;
In vain my wit doth tell in verse my woe;
Despair in me, disdain in thee, doth show
How by my wit I do my folly prove.
All this my heart from love can never move.
Love is not in my heart. No, Lady, no,
My heart is love itself. Till I forego
My heart I never can my love remove.
How can I then leave love? I do intend
Not to crave grace, but yet to wish it still;
Not to praise thee, but beauty to commend;
And so, by beauty's praise, praise thee I will;
For as my heart is love, love not in me,
So beauty thou, beauty is not in thee.
II
Of the prowess of his lady
Sweet sovereign, since so many minds remain
Obedient subjects at thy beauty's call,
So many hearts bound in thy hairs as thrall,
So many eyes die with one look's disdain,
Go, seek the honour that doth thee pertain,
That the Fifth Monarchy may thee befall!
Thou hast such means to conquer men withal,
As all the world must yield or else be slain.
To fight, thou need'st no weapons but thine eyes,
Thine hair hath gold enough to pay thy men,
And for their food thy beauty will suffice;
For men and armour, Lady, care have none;
For one will sooner yield unto thee then
When he shall meet thee naked all alone.
III
Of the discouragement he had to proceed in love, through the multitude of his lady's perfections and his own lowness
When your perfections to my thoughts appear,
They say among themselves, "O happy we,
Whichever shall so rare an object see!"
But happy heart, if thoughts less happy were!
For their delights have cost my heart full dear,
In whom of love a thousand causes be,
And each cause breeds a thousand loves in me,
And each love more than thousand hearts can bear.
How can my heart so many loves then hold,
Which yet by heaps increase from day to day?
But like a ship that's o'ercharged with gold,
Must either sink or hurl the gold away.
But hurl not love; thou canst not, feeble heart;
In thine own blood, thou therefore drownèd art!