r is it her will,
To be so cruell to an humbled foe?
If nature, then she may it mend with skill;
If will, then she at will may will forgoe.
But if her nature and her will be so,
That she will plague the man that loves her most,
And take delight t'encrease a wretches woe,
Then all her natures goodly guifts are lost;
And that same glorious beauties ydle boast
Is but a bayt such wretches to beguile,
As, being long in her loves tempest tost,
She meanes at last to make her pitious spoyle.
O fayrest fayre! let never it be named,
That so fayre beauty was so fowly shamed.

XLII.

The love which me so cruelly tormenteth
So pleasing is in my extreamest paine,
That, all the more my sorrow it augmenteth,
The more I love and doe embrace my bane.
Ne do I wish (for wishing were but vaine)
To be acquit fro my continual smart,
But ioy her thrall for ever to remayne,
And yield for pledge my poor and captyved hart,
The which, that it from her may never start,
Let her, yf please her, bynd with adamant chayne,
And from all wandring loves, which mote pervart
His safe assurance, strongly it restrayne.
Onely let her abstaine from cruelty,
And doe me not before my time to dy.

XLIII.

Shall I then silent be, or shall I speake?
And if I speake, her wrath renew I shall;
And if I silent be, my hart will breake,
Or choked be with overflowing gall.
What tyranny is this, both my hart to thrall,
And eke my toung with proud restraint to tie,
That neither I may speake nor thinke at all,
But like a stupid stock in silence die!
Yet I my hart with silence secretly
Will teach to speak and my just cause to plead,
And eke mine eies, with meek humility,
Love-learned letters to her eyes to read;
Which her deep wit, that true harts thought can spel,
Wil soon conceive, and learne to construe well.

XLIV.

When those renoumed noble peres of Greece
Through stubborn pride among themselves did iar,
Forgetfull of the famous golden fleece,
Then Orpheus with his harp theyr strife did bar.
But this continuall, cruell, civill warre
The which my selfe against my selfe doe make,
Whilest my weak powres of passions warreid arre,
No skill can stint, nor reason can aslake.
But when in hand my tunelesse harp I take,
Then doe I more augment my foes despight,
And griefe renew, and passions doe awake
To battaile, fresh against my selfe to fight.
Mongst whome the more I seeke to settle peace,
The more I fynd their malice to increace.