Ring out your bells, let mourning shews 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 franzy,
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 franzy,
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 franzy,
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 his unmatchèd mind,
Where she his counsel keepeth,
Till due deserts she find:
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a franzy,
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Sir Philip Sidney.
HE THAT LOVES.
He that loves and fears to try,
Learns his mistress to deny.
Doth she chide thee? 'tis to show it
That thy coldness makes her do it.
Is she silent, is she mute?
Silence fully grants thy suit.
Doth she pout and leave the room?
Then she goes to bid thee come.
Is she sick? why then be sure
She invites thee to the cure.
Doth she cross thy suit with "No"?
Tush! she loves to hear thee woo.
Doth she call the faith of men
In question? nay, she loves thee then,
And if e'er she makes a blot,
She's lost if that thou hit'st her not.