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| HAPPY! depart with speed! Than me, more fortunate ever! | |
| Poor Letter, go thy ways! unto my sweet Lady’s hands! | |
| She shall look on thee! and then, with her beautiful eyes bless! | |
| Smiling eyes (perhaps, thee to delight with a glance) | |
| She shall cast on a line; if a line, there, pleaseth her humour! | 5 |
| But if a line displease; then shall appear a frown! | |
| How much she dislikes thy loves, and saucy salutings! | |
| O my life’s sweet Light! know that a frown of thine eye | |
| Can transpierce to my soul, more swift than a Parthian arrow; | |
| And more deeply wound than any lance, or a spear! | 10 |
| But thy sweet Smiles can procure such contrary motions; | |
| Which can, alone, that heal, wound afore by thine eyes! | |
| Like to the lance’s rust, which healed whilom warlike ACHILLES | |
| With right hand valiant, doughtily wounded afore. | |
| Not unlike to the men, whose grief the scorpion helpeth | 15 |
| (Whom he, before, did sting), ready to die through pain: | |
| Thou, that Beauty procures to be thy Chastity’s handmaid, | |
| With Virtue’s regiment glorious, ordered alone! | |
| Thou, that those smooth brows, like plates of ivory planèd, | |
| (When any look on them) canst make appear like a cloud! | 20 |
| Thou, that those clear eyes, whose light surpasseth a star’s light, | |
| Canst make Love’s flames shoot, with cruel anger, abroad! | |
| Thou, that those fair cheeks, when a man thy beauty beholdeth, | |
| (Deeply to wound), canst make sweetly to blush like a rose! | |
| Make thy brows (to delight mine heart!) smooth! Shadow thy clear eyes! | 25 |
| (Whose, smile is to my soul, like to the sun from a cloud, | |
| When he shines to the world in most pride, after a tempest; | |
| And with his heat provokes all the delights of the ground) | |
| Grant me, sweet Lady! this! This, grant! kind Pity requesteth! | |
| Tears and sighs make a suit! Pity me! pity my suit! | 30 |
| Thus to thy sweet graces, will I leave my dreary bewailings! | |
| And to thy gracious heart, I recommend my laments! | |
| Thrice blessed! go thy way, to my Dear! Go, thrice speedy Letter! | |
| And for me, kiss them! since I may not kiss her hands. | |
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