So I left him in that place,
Taking pity on his case;
Learning this among the rest,
That the mean estate is best;
Better filléd with contenting,
Void of wishing and repenting.
DIRGE.
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 nought worth, rejected,
And faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
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 frenzy;
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 frenzy;
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 unmatchéd mind:
Where she his counsel keepeth
Till due deserts she find.
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a frenzy:
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.
STANZAS TO LOVE.
Ah, poor Love, why dost thou live,
Thus to see thy service lost;
If she will no comfort give,
Make an end, yield up the ghost!
That she may, at length, approve
That she hardly long believed,
That the heart will die for love
That is not in time relieved.
Oh, that ever I was born
Service so to be refused;
Faithful love to be forborn!
Never love was so abused.