| |
| I LOVE, and he loves me again, | |
| Yet dare I not tell who; | |
| For if the nymphs should know my swain, | |
| I fear they’d love him too; | |
| Yet if he be not known, | 5 |
| The pleasure is as good as none, | |
| For that’s a narrow joy is but our own. | |
| |
| I’ll tell, that if they be not glad, | |
| They may not envy me; | |
| But then if I grow jealous mad | 10 |
| And of them pitied be, | |
| It were a plague ’bove scorn; | |
| And yet it cannot be forborne | |
| Unless my heart would, as my thought, be torn. | |
| |
| He is, if they can find him, fair | 15 |
| And fresh, and fragrant too, | |
| As summer’s sky or purgéd air, | |
| And looks as lilies do | |
| That are this morning blown: | |
| Yet, yet I doubt he is not known, | 20 |
| And fear much more that more of him be shown. | |
| |
| But he hath eyes so round and bright, | |
| As make away my doubt, | |
| Where Love may all his torches light, | |
| Though Hate had put them out; | 25 |
| But then t’ increase my fears | |
| What nymph soe’er his voice but hears | |
| Will be my rival, though she have but ears. | |
| |
| I’ll tell no more, and yet I love, | |
| And he loves me; yet no | 30 |
| One unbecoming thought doth move | |
| From either heart I know: | |
| But so exempt from blame | |
| As it would be to each a fame, | |
| If love or fear would let me tell his name. | 35 |
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