Chapter XVI

I part; but how? from joy, from hope, from life;
I leave; but whom? love's pride, wit's pomp, heart's bliss;
I pine; for what? for grief, for thought, for strife;
I faint; and why? because I see my miss.
Oh ceaseless pains that never may be told,
You make me weep as I to water would!
Ah weary hopes, in deep oblivious streams
Go seek your graves, since you have lost your grounds!
Ah pensive heart, seek out her radiant gleams!
For why? Thy bliss is shut within those bounds!
All traitorous eyes, to[o] feeble in for[e] sight,
Grow dim with woe, that now must want your light!
I part from bliss to dwell with ceaseless moan,
I part from life, since I from beauty part,
I part from peace, to pine in care alone,
I part from ease to die with dreadful smart.
I part--oh death! for why? this world contains
More care and woe than with despair remains.
Oh loath depart, wherein such sorrows dwell,
As all conceits are scant the same to tell!

XVII

Ah fleeting weal, ah sly deluding sleep,
That in one moment giv'st me joy and pain!
How do my hopes dissolve to tears in vain,
As wont the snows, 'fore angry sun to weep!
Ah noisome life that hath no weal in keep!
My forward grief hath form and working might;
My pleasures like the shadows take their flight;
My path to bliss is tedious, long and steep.
Twice happy thou Endymion that embracest
The live-long night thy love within thine arms,
Where thou fond dream my longèd weal defacest
Whilst fleeting and uncertain shades thou placest
Before my eyes with false deluding charms!
Ah instant sweets which do my heart revive,
How should I joy if you were true alive!

XVIII

As where two raging venoms are united,
Which of themselves dissevered life would sever,
The sickly wretch of sickness is acquited,
Which else should die, or pine in torments ever;
So fire and frost, that hold my heart in seizure,
Restore those ruins which themselves have wrought,
Where if apart they both had had their pleasure,
The earth long since her fatal claim had caught.
Thus two united deaths keep me from dying;
I burne in ice, and quake amidst the fire,
No hope midst these extremes or favour spying;
Thus love makes me a martyr in his ire.
So that both cold and heat do rather feed
My ceaseless pains, than any comfort breed.

XIX

Thou tyrannizing monarch that dost tire
My love-sick heart through those assaulting eyes,
That are the lamps which lighten my desire!
If nought but death thy fury may suffice,
Not for my peace, but for thy pleasure be it,
That Phillis, wrathful Phillis that repines me
All grace but death, may deign to come and see it,
And seeing grieve at that which she assigns me.
This only boon for all my mortal bane
I crave and cry for at thy mercy seat:
That when her wrath a faithful heart hath slain,
And soul is fled, and body reft of heat,
She might perceive how much she might command,
That had my life and death within her hand.