What viewed I, dear, when I thine eyes beheld?
Love in his glory? No, him Thyrsis saw,
And stood the boy, whilst he his darts did draw,
Whose painted pride to baser swains he telled.
Saw I two suns? That sight is seen but seld.
Yet can their brood that teach the holy law
Gaze on their beams, and dread them not a straw,
Where princely looks are by their eyes repelled.
What saw I then? Doubtless it was Amen,
Armed with strong thunder and a lightning's flame,
Who bridegroom like with power was riding then,
Meaning that none should see him when he came.
Yet did I gaze; and thereby caught the wound
Which burns my heart and keeps my body sound.
IV
When tedious much and over weary long,
Cruel disdain reflecting from her brow,
Hath been the cause that I endured such wrong
And rest thus discontent and weary now.
Yet when posterity in time to come,
Shall find th' uncancelled tenour of her vow,
And her disdain be then confessed of some,
How much unkind and long, I find it now,
O yet even then—though then will be too late
To comfort me; dead, many a day, ere then—
They shall confess I did not force her heart;
And time shall make it known to other men
That ne'er had her disdain made me despair,
Had she not been so excellently fair.
V
Had she not been so excellently fair,
My muse had never mourned in lines of woe;
But I did too inestimable weigh her,
And that's the cause I now lament me so.
Yet not for her contempt do I complain me:
Complaints may ease the mind, but that is all;
Therefore though she too constantly disdain me,
I can but sigh and grieve, and so I shall.
Yet grieve I not because I must grieve ever;
And yet, alas, waste tears away, in vain;
I am resolvèd truly to persèver,
Though she persisteth in her old disdain.
But that which grieves me most is that I see
Those which most fair, the most unkindest be.
VI
Thus long imposed to everlasting plaining,
Divinely constant to the worthiest fair,
And movèd by eternally disdaining,
Aye to persèver in unkind despair:
Because now silence wearily confined
In tedious dying and a dumb restraint,
Breaks forth in tears from mine unable mind
To ease her passion by a poor complaint;
O do not therefore to thyself suggest
That I can grieve to have immured so long
Upon the matter of mine own unrest;
Such grief is not the tenour of my song,
That 'bide so zealously so bad a wrong.
My grief is this; unless I speak and plain me,
Thou wilt persèver ever to disdain me.