When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutored youth,

Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:

But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O love's best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love, loves not to have years told.

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

O call not me to justify the wrong,

That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,

Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,

Use power with power, and slay me not by art,

Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,

Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,

What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might

Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?

Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,

Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,

And therefore from my face she turns my foes,

That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:

Yet do not so, but since I am near slain, 

Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.

Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:

Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit better it were,

Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,

As testy sick men when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know.

For if I should despair I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee,

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, 

For they in thee a thousand errors note,

But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.

Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,

Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:

But my five wits, nor my five senses can

Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,

Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:

Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,

Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,

O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,

And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,

Or if it do, not from those lips of thine, 

That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,

And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,

Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.

Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,

Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,

Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,

Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,

By self-example mayst thou be denied.

Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,

One of her feathered creatures broke away,

Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch

In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:

Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,

To follow that which flies before her face:

Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;

So run'st thou after that which flies from thee, 

Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,

But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.

So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,

If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still,

The better angel is a man right fair:

The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.

To win me soon to hell my female evil,

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:

Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

And whether that my angel be turned fiend,

Suspect 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 shall 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 sound that said 'I hate',

To me that languished for her sake:

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' she altered with an end,

That followed 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 saved my life saying 'not you'.

Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth, 

My sinful earth these rebel powers array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms inheritors of this excess

Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?

Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,

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 shall 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 still,

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

Th' uncertain sickly 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,

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,

My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,

At random from the truth vainly expressed.

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,

Which have no correspondence with true sight,

Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,

That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

What means the world to say it is not so?

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,