My mistress lowers, and saith I do not love: I do protest, and seek with service due, In humble mind, a constant faith to prove; But for all this, I cannot her remove From deep vain thought that I may not be true.
If Greeks themselves were moved with so small cause, To twist those broils, which hardly would untwine: Should ladies fair be tied to such hard laws, As in their moods to take a lingring pause? I would it not, their metal is too fine.
Then, good Apollo, do away thy bow: Take harp and sing in this our versing time, And in my brain some sacred humour flow, That all the earth my woes, sighs, tears may know; And see you not that I fall low to rhyme.
As for my mirth, how could Ibut be glad, Whilst that methought I justly made my boast That only I the only mistress had? But now, if eer my face with joy be clad, Think Hannibal did laugh when Carthage lost.
Sweet lady, as for those whose sullen cheer, Compared to me, made me in lightness sound; Who, stoic-like, in cloudy hue appear; Who silence force to make their words more dear; Whose eyes seem chaste, because they look on ground:
Believe them not, for physic true doth find, Choler adust is joyed in woman-kind.
O this it is, the knotted straw is found; In tender hearts, small things engender hate: A horses worth laid waste the Trojan ground; A three-foot stool in Greece made trumpets sound; An asss shade eer now hath bred debate.
Are poets then the only lovers true, Whose hearts are set on measuring a verse? Who think themselves well blest, if they renew Some good old dump that Chaucers mistress knew; And use but you for matters to rehearse.
My hand doth not bear witness with my heart, She saith, because I make no woeful lays, To paint my living death and endless smart: And so, for one that felt god Cupids dart, She thinks I lead and live too merry days.
If oaths might serve, evn by the Stygian lake, Which poets say the gods themselves do fear, I never did my vowed word forsake: For why should I, whom free choice slave doth make, Else-what in face, than in my fancy bear?
My Muse, therefore, for only thou canst tell, Tell me the cause of this my causeless woe? Tell, how ill thought disgraced my doing well? Tell, how my joys and hopes thus foully fell To so low ebb that wonted were to flow?
