We are a liars, because
the truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow,
whereas letters are fixed,
and we live by the letter of truth.
The love I feel for my friend, this year,
is different from the love I felt last year.
If it were not so, it would be a lie.
Yet we reiterate love! love! love!
as if it were a coin with a fixed value
instead of a flower that dies, and opens a different bud.
AH, my heart, the storm and sadness!
Wind that moans, uncomforted,
Requiem for Love that’s dead’
Love that’s dead!
Leafless trees that sough and sigh,
Gloom of earth, and grey of sky,
Ah, my heart, what storm and sadness!
Ah, my heart, those sweet Septembers!
Ah, the glory and the glow
Of the Spring-tides long ago,
Long ago!
Gleam of gold, and glint of green
On the grassy hillsides seen,
Ah, my heart, those sweet Septembers!
When I was bold, when I was bold-
And that's a hundred years!-
Oh, never I thought my breast could hold
The terrible weight of tears.
I said: "Now some be dolorous;
I hear them wail and sigh,
And if it be Love that play them thus,
Then never a love will I."
I said: "I see them rack and rue,
I see them wring and ache,
And little I'll crack my heart in two
With little the heart can break."
When I was gay, when I was gay-
It's ninety years and nine!-
O sugared talk, wherewith my thoughts do live!
O brows, love's trophy and my senses' shine!
O charming smiles, that death or life can give!
O heavenly kisses from a mouth divine!
O wreaths too strong, and trammels made of hair!
O pearls incloséd in an ebon pale!
O rose and lilies in a field most fair,
Where modest white doth make the red seem pale!
O voice whose accents live within my heart!
O heavenly hand that more than Atlas holds!
O sighs perfumed, that can release my smart!
Ah Licia, sigh and say thou art my own;
Nay, be my own, as you full oft have said.
So shall your truth unto the world be known,
And I resolved where now I am afraid.
And if my tongue eternize can your praise,
Or silly speech increase your worthy fame,
If ought I can, to heaven your worth can raise,
The age to come shall wonder at the same.
In this respect your love, sweet love, I told,
My faith and truth I vowed should be forever.
You were the cause if that I was too bold;
Cruel fair love, I justly do complain
Of too much rigor and thy heart unkind,
That for mine eyes thou hast my body slain,
And would not grant that I should favour find.
I looked, fair love, and you my love looked fair,
I sighed for love and you for sport did smile.
Your smiles were such as did perfume the air,
And this perfuméd did my heart beguile.
Thus I confess the fault was in mine eyes,
Begun with sighs and ended with a flame.
I for your love did all the world despise,
If, aged Charon, when my life shall end,
I pass thy ferry and my waftage pay,
Thy oars shall fall, thy boat and mast shall rend,
And through the deep shall be a dry foot-way.
For why? My heart with sighs doth breathe such flame
That air and water both incenséd be,
The boundless ocean from whose mouth they came,
For from my heat not heaven itself is free.
Then since to me thy loss can be no gain,
Avoid thy harm and fly what I foretell.
Make thou thy love with me for to be slain,
Fair matchless nymph, respect but what I crave;
My thoughts are true, and honour is my love;
I fainting die whom yet a smile might save;
You gave the wound, and can the hurt remove.
Those eyes like stars that twinkle in the night,
And cheeks like rubies pale in lilies dyed,
Those ebon hands that darting hath such might
That in my soul my love and life divide,
Accept the passions of a man possessed;
Let love be loved and grant me leave to live;
Disperse those clouds that darkened have my rest,
Sweet, I protest, and seal it with an oath:
I never saw that so my thoughts did please;
And yet content displeased I see them wroth
To love so much and cannot have their ease.
I told my thoughts, my sovereign made a pause,
Disposed to grant, but willing to delay;
They then repined, for that they knew no cause,
And swore they wished she flatly would say nay.
Thus hath my love my thoughts with treason filled,
And 'gainst my sovereign taught them to repine.
So thus my treason all my thoughts hath killed,
Pale are my looks, forsaken of my life,
Cinders my bones, consume'd with thy flame,
Floods are my tears, to end this burning strife,
And yet I sigh for to increase the same;
I mourn alone because alone I burn;
Who doubts of this, then let him learn to love;
Her looks cold ice into a flame can turn,
As I distresséd in myself do prove.
Respect, fair Licia, what my torments are;
Count but the tithe both of my sighs and tears;
See how my love doth still increase my care,
