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| 1. | IF sad Complaint would shew a Lover’s pain; | |
| Or Tears express the torments of my heart: | |
| If melting Sighs would ruth and pity gain; | |
| Or true Laments but ease a Lover’s smart: | |
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| 2. | Then should my Plaints the thunder’s noise surmount; | 5 |
| And Tears, like seas, should flow from out my eyes. | |
| Then Sighs, like air, should far exceed all count; | |
| And true Laments with sorrow dim the skies. | |
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| 3. | But Plaints and Tears, Laments and Sighs I spend: | |
| Yet greater torments do my heart destroy. | 10 |
| I could all these from out my heart still send; | |
| If, after these, I might my Love enjoy. | |
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| 4. | But heavens conspire; and heavens I must obey: | |
| That seeking love, I still must want my ease. | |
| For greatest joys are tempered with delay: | 15 |
| Things soon obtained do least of all us please. | |
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| 5. | My thoughts repine, and think the time too long. | |
| My love impatient wisheth to obtain. | |
| I blame the heavens, that do me all this wrong: | |
| To make me loved; and will not ease my pain. | 20 |
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| 6. | No pain like this, to love and not enjoy. | |
| No grief like this, to mourn and not be heard. | |
| No time so long as that which breeds annoy. | |
| No hell like this, to love and be deferred. | |
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| 7. | But heaven shall stand, and earth inconstant fly; | 25 |
| The sun shall freeze, and ice inconstant burn; | |
| The mountains flow, and all the earth be dry: | |
| Ere time shall force my loving thoughts to turn. | |
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| 8. | “Do you resolve, sweet Love! to do the same: | |
| Say that you do, and seal it with a kiss! | 30 |
| Then shall our truths [troths] the heavens’ unkindness blame; | |
| That cannot hurt, yet shew their spite in this. | |
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| 9. | “The silly Prentice, bound for many years, | |
| Doth hope that time his service will release; | |
| The town besieged, that lives in midst of fears, | 35 |
| Doth hope in time the cruel wars will cease; | |
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| 10. | “The toiling Ploughman sings in hope to reap; | |
| The tossèd bark expecteth for a shore; | |
| The boy at school to be at play doth leap, | |
| And straight forgets the fear he had before: | 40 |
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| 11. | “If those, by hope, do joy in their distress; | |
| And constant are, in hope to conquer time: | |
| Then let not hope in us, sweet Friend! be less; | |
| And cause our love to wither in the prime. | |
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| “Let us conspire, and time will have an end; | 45 |
| So both of us in time shall have a friend.”
F I N I S. | |
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