Care-charmer sleep! Sweet ease in restless misery!
The captive's liberty, and his freedom's song!
Balm of the bruisèd heart! Man's chief felicity!
Brother of quiet death, when life is too too long!
A comedy it is, and now an history;
What is not sleep unto the feeble mind!
It easeth him that toils and him that's sorry;
It makes the deaf to hear, to see the blind;
Ungentle sleep, thou helpest all but me!
For when I sleep my soul is vexèd most.
It is Fidessa that doth master thee;
If she approach, alas, thy power is lost!
But here she is! See how he runs amain!
I fear at night he will not come again.
XVI
For I have lovèd long, I crave reward;
Reward me not unkindly, think on kindness;
Kindness becometh those of high regard;
Regard with clemency a poor man's blindness;
Blindness provokes to pity when it crieth;
It crieth "Give!" Dear lady, shew some pity!
Pity or let him die that daily dieth;
Dieth he not oft who often sings this ditty?
This ditty pleaseth me although it choke me;
Methinks dame Echo weepeth at my moaning,
Moaning the woes that to complain provoke me.
Provoke me now no more, but hear my groaning,
Groaning both day and night doth tear my heart,
My heart doth know the cause and triumphs in the smart.
XVII
Sweet stroke,—so might I thrive as I must praise—
But sweeter hand that gives so sweet a stroke!
The lute itself is sweetest when she plays.
But what hear I? A string through fear is broke!
The lute doth shake as if it were afraid.
O sure some goddess holds it in her hand,
A heavenly power that oft hath me dismayed,
Yet such a power as doth in beauty stand!
Cease lute, my ceaseless suit will ne'er be heard!
Ah, too hard-hearted she that will not hear it!
If I but think on joy, my joy is marred;
My grief is great, yet ever must I bear it;
But love 'twixt us will prove a faithful page,
And she will love my sorrows to assuage.
XVIII
O she must love my sorrows to assuage.
O God, what joy felt I when she did smile,
Whom killing grief before did cause to rage!
Beauty is able sorrow to beguile.
Out, traitor absence! thou dost hinder me,
And mak'st my mistress often to forget,
Causing me to rail upon her cruelty,
Whilst thou my suit injuriously dost let;
Again her presence doth astonish me,
And strikes me dumb as if my sense were gone;
Oh, is not this a strange perplexity?
In presence dumb, she hears not absent moan;
Thus absent presence, present absence maketh,
That hearing my poor suit, she it mistaketh.
XIX
My pain paints out my love in doleful verse,
The lively glass wherein she may behold it;
My verse her wrong to me doth still rehearse,
But so as it lamenteth to unfold it.
Myself with ceaseless tears my harms bewail,
And her obdurate heart not to be moved;
Though long-continued woes my senses fail,
And curse the day, the hour when first I loved.
She takes the glass wherein herself she sees,
In bloody colours cruelly depainted;
And her poor prisoner humbly on his knees,
Pleading for grace, with heart that never fainted.
She breaks the glass; alas, I cannot choose
But grieve that I should so my labour lose!
XX