| |
| HE is stark mad, whoever says, | |
| That he hath been in love an hour, | |
| Yet not that love so soon decays, | |
| But that it can ten in less space devour; | |
| Who will believe me, if I swear | 5 |
| That I have had the plague a year? | |
| Who would not laugh at me, if I should say | |
| I saw a flash 1 of powder burn a day? | |
| |
| Ah, what a trifle is a heart, | |
| If once into love’s hands it come! | 10 |
| All other griefs allow a part | |
| To other griefs, and ask themselves but some; | |
| They come to us, but us love draws; | |
| He swallows us and never chaws; | |
| By him, as by chain’d shot, whole ranks do die; | 15 |
| He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry. 2 | |
| |
| If ’twere not so, what did become | |
| Of my heart when I first saw thee? | |
| I brought a heart into the room, | |
| But from the room I carried none with me. | 20 |
| If it had gone to thee, I know | |
| Mine would have taught thine heart to show | |
| More pity unto me; but Love, alas! | |
| At one first blow did shiver it as glass. | |
| |
| Yet nothing can to nothing fall, | 25 |
| Nor any place be empty quite; | |
| Therefore I think my breast hath all | |
| Those pieces still, though they be not unite; | |
| And now, as broken glasses show | |
| A hundred lesser faces, so | 30 |
| My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, | |
| But after one such love, can love no more. | |
