Awake, sweet love! Thou art returned!
My heart, which long in absence mourned,
Lives now in perfect joy.
Only herself hath seemèd fair;
She only could I love.
She only drave me to despair,
When she unkind did prove.
Let love which never, absent, dies;
Now live for ever in her eyes!
Whence came my first annoy:
Despair did make me wish to die
That I my joys might end,
She only, which did make me fly,
My state may now amend.
If she esteem thee now ought worth;
She will not grieve thy love henceforth!
Which so despair hath proved.
Despair hath proved now in me
That love will not unconstant be,
Though long in vain I loved.
If she, at last, reward thy love
And all thy harms repair!
Thy happiness will sweeter prove,
Raised up from deep despair.
And if that now thou welcome be,
When thou with her doth meet;
She all this while, but played with thee,
To make thy joys more sweet.
Come, heavy Sleep! the Image of true Death!
And close up these my weary weeping eyes!
Whose spring of tears doth stop my vital breath,
And tears my heart with sorrow's sigh-swollen cries.
Come, and possess my tired thoughts! worn soul!
That living dies, till thou on me bestoule!
Come, Shadow of my End; and Shape of Rest!
Allied to Death, Child to this black-fast Night!
Come thou, and charm these rebels in my breast!
Whose waking fancies doth my mind affright.
O come, sweet Sleep! Come, or I die for ever!
Come ere my last sleep comes, or come never!