love poem

Who will in fairest book of nature know
How virtue may best lodg'd in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices' overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly;
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And, not content to be perfection's heir
Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair.

Virtue, alas, now let me take some rest.
Thou set'st a bate between my soul and wit.
If vain love have my simple soul oppress'd,
Leave what thou likest not, deal not thou with it.

The scepter use in some old Cato's breast;
Churches or schools are for thy seat more fit.
I do confess, pardon a fault confess'd,
My mouth too tender is for thy hard bit.

But if that needs thou wilt usurping be,
The little reason that is left in me,
And still th'effect of thy persuasions prove:

Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot
Love gave the wound, which while I breathe will bleed;
But known worth did in mine of time proceed,
Till by degrees it had full conquest got:

I saw and liked, I liked but loved not;
I lov'd, but straight did not what Love decreed.
At length to love's decrees I, forc'd, agreed,
Yet with repining at so partial lot.

Now even that footstep of lost liberty
Is gone, and now like slave-born Muscovite
I call it praise to suffer tyranny;

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn'd brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay,

Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place,
Forc'd by a tedious proof, that Turkish harden'd heart
Is no fit mark to pierce with his fine pointed dart,
And pleas'd with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race.

But finding these north climes do coldly him embrace,
Not used to frozen clips, he strave to find some part
Where with most ease and warmth he might employ his art:
At length he perch'd himself in Stella's joyful face,

Whose fair skin, beamy eyes, like morning sun on snow,

Love still a boy, and oft a wanton is,
School'd only by his mother's tender eye:
What wonder then if he his lesson miss,
When for so soft a rod dear play he try?

And yet my Star, because a sugar'd kiss
In sport I suck'd, while she asleep did lie,
Doth low'r, nay chide; nay, threat for only this:
Sweet, it was saucy Love, not humble I.

But no 'scuse serves, she makes her wrath appear
In Beauty's throne; see now who dares come near
Those scarlet judges, threat'ning bloody pain?

Love by sure proof I may call thee unkind,
That giv'st no better ear to my just cries:
Thou whom to me such my good turns should bind,
As I may well recount, but none can prize:

For when, nak'd boy, thou couldst no harbor find
In this old world, grown now so too too wise,
I lodg'd thee in my heart, and being blind
Bu nature born, I gave to thee mine eyes.

Mine eyes, my light, my heart, my life alas,
If so great services may scorned be,
Yet let this thought thy tigrish courage pass:

Late tir'd with woe, ev'n ready for to pine,
With rage of love, I call'd my love unkind;
She is whose eyes Love, though unfelt, doth shine,
Sweet said that I true love in her should find.

I joy'd, but straight thus water'd was my wine,
That love she did, but lov'd a Love not blind,
Which would not let me, whem she lov'd, decline
From nobler course, fit for my birth and mind:

And therefore by her love's authority,
Will'd me these tempests of vain love to flee,
And anchor fast myself on Virtue's shore.

When my good angel guides me to the place,
Where all my good I do in Stella see,
That heav'n of joys throws only down on me
Thunder'd disdains and lightnings of disgrace:

But when the rugg'st step of Fortune's race
Makes me fall from her sight, then sweetly she
With words, wherein the Muses' treasures be,
Shows love and pity to my absent case.

Now I, wit-beaten long by hardest Fate,
So dull am, that I cannot look into
The ground of this fierce Love and lovely hate:

Dear, why make you more of a dog than me?
If he do love, I burn, I burn in love;
If he wait well, I never thence would move;
If he be fair, yet but a dog can be.

Little he is, so little worth is he;
He barks, my songs thine own voice oft doth prove:
Bidden perhaps he fetcheth thee a glove,
But I unbid, fetch ev'n my soul to thee.

Yet while I languish, him that bosom clips,
That lap doth lap, nay lets in spite of spite
This sour-breath'd mate taste of those sugar'd lips.