This torment of love
that is in my heart,
I know I feel it
and know not why.

I feel the keen pangs
of a frenzy desired
whose beginning is longing
and end melancholy.

And when I my sorrow
more softly bewail,
I know I am sad
and know not why.

I feel for the juncture
I crave a fierce panting,
and when I come nigh it
withhold mine own hand.

For if haply it offers
after much weary vigil,
mistrust spoils its savour
and terror dispels it.
...
Now patient, now fretful,
by conflicting griefs torn,
who for him much shall suffer,
and with him suffer nought.
...
On scant foundations
my sad cares raise
with delusive conceits
a mountain of feeling.

And when that proud mass
falls asunder I find
that the arrogant fabric
was poised on a pin.

Beguiled perhaps by grief
I presume without reason
no fulfilment can ever
my passion assuage.
...
And though nigh disabused,
still the same grief assails me,
that I suffer so sore
for so little a cause.

Perhaps the wounded soul sweeping
to take its revenge
repents it and wreaks
other vengeance on me.
...
In my blindness and folly
I, gladly deceived,
beseech disenchantment
and desire it not.