Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do fuggeft me ftill:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worfer spirit a woman colour'd ill.
To win me foon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my fide,
And would corrupt my faint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Sufpe&t I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this fhall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the found that said 'I hate,'
To me that languish'd for her fake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom;
And taught it thus anew to greet;
I hate' fhe alter'd with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who, like a fiend,
From heaven to hell is flown away;
'I hate' from hate away she threw,
And faved my life, faying-Not you.'
Poor foul, the centre of my finful earth, [Preff'd by] these rebel powers that thee array, Why doft thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why fo large coft, having so short a lease, Doft thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?
Then, foul, live thou upon thy fervant's lofs,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:
So fhalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
My love is as a fever, longing ftill
For that which longer nurseth the disease;
Feeding on that which doth preferve the ill,
The uncertain fickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Defire is death, which phyfic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unreft;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth, vainly expreff'd ;
For I have fworn thee fair, and thought thee
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. [bright,
O me, what
eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true fight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgement fled,
That cenfures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not fo?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,
How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is fo vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The fun itself fees not till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep❜ft me blind,
Left eyes well-feeing thy foul faults should find.
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