Classic Poem

I.

Ev'n as my hand my pen on paper lays,
My trembling hand my pen from paper stays,
Lest that thine eyes, which shining made me love you,
Should frowning on my suit bid cease to move you;
So that I fare like one at his wit's end,
Hoping to gain and fearing to offend.
What pleaseth hope, the same despair mislikes,
What hope sets down, those lines despair outstrikes;
So that my nursing murdering pen affords
A grave and cradle to my new-born words.
But whilst, like clouds tost up and down the air,
I racked hang 'twixt hope and sad despair,
Despair is beaten vanquished from the field,
And unto conq'ring hope my heart doth yield.

II.

For when mine eyes unpartially are fixed
On thy rose cheeks, with lilies intermixed;
And on thy forehead, like a cloud of snow,
From under which thine eyes like suns do show;
And all those parts, which curiously do meet
'Twixt thy large-spreading hair and pretty feet;
Yet looking on them all, discern no one,
That owes not homage unto Cupid's throne.
Then Chastity, methinks, no claim should lay
To this fair realm, under Love's sceptre's sway;
For only to the Queen of amorous pleasure
Belongs thy beauty's tributary treasure:
(Treasure, which doth more than those riches please,
For which men plough long furrows in the seas.)
If you were wrinkled, old, or Nature's scorn,
Or time your beauty's colours had out-worn;
Or were you mewed up from gazing eyes,
Like to a cloistered nun which, living, dies;
Then might you wait on Chastity's pale Queen,
Not being fair, or being fair, not seen.

III.

But you are fair, so passing, passing fair,
That love I must, though loving I despair;
For when I saw your eyes, O, cursed bliss!
Whose light I would not leave, nor yet would miss;
(For 'tis their life alone by which I live,
And yet their sight alone my death's wound give;)
Looking upon your heart-entangling look,
I, like a heedless bird, was snared and took.

IV.

It lies not in our will to hate or love;
For Nature's influence our will doth move:
And love of beauty, Nature hath innated
In hearts of men, when first they were created,
For e'en as rivers to the ocean run,
Returning back from whence they first begun;
Or as the sky about the earth doth wheel,
Or giddy air like to a drunkard reel:
So with the course of Nature doth agree,
That eyes, which beauty's adamant do see,
Should on affection's line trembling remain,
True subject-like, eyeing their sovereign.

V.

If of mine eyes you also could bereave me,
As you already of my heart deceive me;
Or could shut up my ravished ears, through which
You likewise did m' enchanted heart bewitch;
Or had in absence both these ills combined,
(For by your absence I am deaf and blind,
And neither ears nor eyes in aught delight
But in your charming speech and gracious sight:)
To root out love all means you can invent,
Were all but labour lost, and time ill spent;
For as the sparks being spent which fire procure,
The fire doth brightly burning still endure;
Though absence so your sparkling eyes remove,
My heart still burns in endless flames of love.

VI.

Then strive not 'gainst the stream to none effect;
But let due love yield love a due respect;
Nor seek to ruin what yourself begun,
Or loose a knot that cannot be undone;
But unto Cupid's bent conform your will,
For will you, nill you, I must love you still.
But if your will did swim with reason's tide,
Or followed Nature's never-erring guide,
It cannot choose but bring you unto this,
To tender that which by you gotten is.
Why were you fair to be besought of many,
If you live chaste not to be won of any?
For if that Nature love to Beauty offers,
And Beauty shun the love that Nature proffers:
Then, either unjust Beauty is to blame,
With scorn to quench a lawful kindled flame;
Or else unlawfully if love we must,
And be unloved, then Nature is unjust:
Unjustly then Nature hath hearts created,
There to love most, where most their love is hated,
And flattering them with a fair-seeming ill,
To poison them with Beauty's sugared pill.

VII.

Think you that Beauty's admirable worth
Was to no end, or idle end brought forth?
No no: from Nature never deed did pass,
But it by Wisdom's hand subscribed was.
But you in vain are fair, if fair not viewed,
Or being seen, men's hearts be not subdued,
Or making each man's heart your beauty's thrall,
You be enjoyed of no one at all.
For as the lion's strength to seize his prey,
And fearful hare's light foot to run away,
Are as an idle talent but abused,
And fruitless had, if had, they be not used;
So you in vain have beauty's bonds to show,
By which men's eyes engaged hearts do owe,
If time shall cancel them before you gain
Th' indebted tribute to your beauty's reign.

VIII.

But if, these reasons being vainly spent,
You fight it out to the last argument,
Tell me but how one body can enclose,
As loving friends, two deadly hating foes?
But when as contraries are mixed together,
The colour made, doth differ much from either;
Whilst mutually at strife they do impeach
The gloss and lustre proper unto each;
So, where one body jointly doth invest
An angel's face and cruel tiger's breast,
There dieth both allegiance and command,
For self-divided kingdoms cannot stand:
But as a child that knows not what is what,
Now craveth this, and now affecteth that,
And having, weighs not that which he requires,
But is unpleased even in his pleased desires:
Chaste Beauty so both will and will not have
The self-same thing it childishly doth crave;
And wanton-like, now love, now hate affecteth,
And love or hate obtain'd, as fast neglecteth.

IX.

So, like the web Penelope did weave,
Which made by day, she did at night unreave,
Fruitless affection's endless thread is spun,
At one self-instant twisted, and undone.
Nor yet is this chaste beauty's greatest ill;
For where it speaketh fair, it there doth kill.
A marble heart under an amorous look
Is of a flattering bait the murdering hook:
For from a lady's shining-frowning eyes,
Death's sable dart, and Cupid's arrow flies.

X.

Since then from Chastity and Beauty spring
Such muddy streams, where each doth reign as king;
Let tyrant Chastity's usursped throne
Be made the seat of Beauty's grace alone:
And let your beauty be with this sufficed,
That my heart's city is by it surprised.
Rase not my heart, nor to your beauty raise
Blood-gilded trophies of your beauty's praise;
For wisest conquerors do towns desire
On honourable terms, and not with fire.