Classic Poem

MARINO

Strange kind of Love! that knows no President,
A Faith so firm as passeth faiths Extent,
By a Tyrannick Beauty long subdu'd,
I now must sue for her to whom I su'd,
Unhappy Orator! who though I move
For Pitty, Pitty cannot hope to prove:
Employing thus against my self my Breath,
And in anothers Life begging my Death.

But if such moving Powers my Accents have,
Why first my own Redresse do I not crave?
What hopes that I to pitty should encline
Anothers Brest, who can move none in thine?
Or how can the griev'd Patient look for ease
When the Physitian suffers the disease?
If thy sharp Wounds from me expect their Cure,
'Tis fit those first be heald that I indure.

Ungentle fair one! why dost thou dispence
Unequally thy sacred Influence?
Why pining me, offer'st the precious Food
To one by whom nor priz'd, nor understood;
So some clear Brook to the full Main, to pay
Her needlesse Christal Tribute hastes away,
Profusely foolish; whilst her niggard Tide
Starves the poor Flowres that grow along her side.

Thou who my Glories art design'd to own
Come then, and reap the Joyes that I have sown:
Yet in thy Pride acknowledge, though thou bear
The happy Prize away, the Palm I wear.
Nor the obedience of my Flame accuse,
That what I sought, my self conspir'd to lose:
The haplesse state where I am fix'd is such,
To love I seem not, cause I Love too much.