Classic Poem

BEING BY HIS ABSENCE IN ITALY DEPRIVED OF HER LOOKS, WORDS, AND GESTURES, HE DESIRETH HER TO WRITE UNTO HIM .

I.

My only star,
Why, why are your dear eyes,
 Where all my life's peace lies,
With me at war?
 Why to my ruin tending,
Do they still lighten woe,
On him that loves you so,
That all his thoughts in you have birth and ending?

II.

Hope of my heart,
 Oh wherefore do the words,
 Which your sweet tongue affords,
No hope impart?
 But cruel without measure,
To my eternal pain,
Still thunder forth disdain
On him whose life depends upon your pleasure?

III.

Sunshine of joy,
 Why do your gestures, which
 All eyes and hearts bewitch,
My bliss destroy?
 And pity's sky o'erclouding,
Of hate an endless show'r
On that poor heart still pour,
Which in your bosom seeks his only shrouding?

IV.

Balm of my wound,
 Why are your lines, whose sight
 Should cure me with delight,
My poison found?
 Which through my veins dispersing,
Make my poor heart and mind,
And all my senses, find
A living death, in torments past rehearsing.

V.

Alas! my fate
 Hath of your eyes deprived me,
 Which both killed and revived me,
And sweetened hate;
 Your sweet voice, and sweet graces,
Which clothed in lovely weeds
Your cruel words and deeds,
Are intercepted by far distant places.

VI.

But, oh! the anguish
 Which presence still presented,
 Absence hath not absented,
Nor made to languish;
 No, no, t' increase my paining,
The cause being, ah! removed,
For which th' effect I loved,
Th' effect is still in greatest force remaining.

VII.

Oh! cruel tiger,
 If to your hard heart's centre
 Tears, vows, and prayers may enter,
Desist your rigour;
And let kind lines assure me,
Since to my deadly wound
No salve else can be found,
That you that kill me, yet at length will cure me.