Dissolve this frost, or let that quench thy fire.
Or let me not desire, or else possess!
Neither, or both, are equal happiness.
Expostulation, &c.] The texts of 1647 and 1656 differ considerably here, and Miss Guiney has attempted a 'composite text'—a thing for which I have small fancy. That given above is from 1647: 1656 runs as follows in the first quatrain:
Love, what tyrannic laws must they obey
Who bow beneath thy uncontrolled sway;
Or how unjust will that harsh empire prove
Forbids to hope, and yet commands to love.
and reads in l. 9 'hope' for 'joy'; l. 10 'thought that's cold'; l. 14 'old' and 'here' for 'cold' and 'near'; l. 15 (entirely different)
Then let thy dim heat warm, or else expire.