LOVE. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love. It is to be all made of faith and service, All made of passion, and all made of wishes; O, how this spring of love resembleth Things base and vile, holding no quality, The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns : Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage; He makes sweet music with the enamel'd stones, He overtaketh in his pilgrimage. O, gentle Protheus, love's a mighty lord; There is no woe to his correction, Nor, to his service, no such joy on earth! Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs; Sweet love, I see, changing his property, Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, The blood of youth burns not with such excess, A murd'rous guilt shews not itself more soon Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, As in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so eating love None are so surely caught, when they are catch'd, Was not this love, indeed? Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, This weak impress of love is as a figure Ah me! for aught that I could ever read, The course of true love never did run smooth. In your fine frame hath love no quality? There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, This is the very ecstacy of love; That does afflict our natures. She, sweet lady, dotes, Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, Upon this spotted and inconstant man. All fancy sick she is, and pale of cheer Hinder not my course: I'll be as patient as a gentle stream, And make a pastime of each weary step, Till the last step have brought me to my love. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps; Much less shall she, that hath love's wings to fly. When love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enforced ceremony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write, Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Reason thus with reason fetter : Love's heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,` Driving back shadows over lowring hills. To be in love where scorn is bought with groans; With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights : Love is full of unbefitting strains; O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! You thief of love! what, have you come by night, Holy Saint Francis! what a change is here! In revenge of my contempt of love, Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes, And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow. My love doth so approve him, That even his stubbornness, his checks, and frowns, Have grace and favour in them. I know not why I love this youth; and I have heard you say, Even in so short a space, my woman's heart Mine eyes Were not in fault, for she was beautiful; Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor mine heart, That thought her like her seeming; it had been vicious, To have mistrusted her. Madam, you have bereft me of all words, Helen, I love thee; by my life, I do : Who sees the heavenly Rosaline, That like a rude and savage man of Inde, Oh, happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars, and your tongue' sweet air, |