For some can say, whose loves have known like passion,
"Women are kind by kind, and coy for fashion."
II
Give period to my matter of complaining,
Fair wonder of our time's admiring eye,
And entertain no more thy long disdaining,
Or give me leave at last that I may die.
For who can live, perpetually secluded
From death to life, that loathes her discontent?
Lest by some hope seducively deluded,
Such thoughts aspire to fortunate event;
But I that now have drawn mal-pleasant breath
Under the burden of thy cruel hate,
O, I must long and linger after death,
And yet I dare not give my life her date;
For if I die and thou repent t' have slain me,
'Twill grieve me more than if thou didst disdain me.
III
'Twill grieve me more than if thou didst disdain me,
That I should die; and thou, because I die so.
And yet to die, it should not know to pain me,
If cruel beauty were content to bid so.
Death to my life, life to my long despair
Prolonged by her, given to my love and days,
Are means to tell how truly she is fair,
And I can die to testify her praise.
Yet not to die, though fairness me despiseth,
Is cause why in complaint I thus persever;
Though death me and my love inparadiseth,
By interdicting me from her for ever.
I do not grieve that I am forced to die,
But die to think upon the reason why.
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