Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write,
    And sayst my lines be dull and do not move,
    I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight,
    Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love;
      But thou whose pen hath like a packhorse served,
    Whose stomach unto gall hath turned thy food,
    Whose senses like poor prisoners, hunger-starved
    Whose grief hath parched thy body, dried thy blood;
      Thou which hast scorned life and hated death,
    And in a moment, mad, sober, glad, and sorry;
    Thou which hast banned thy thoughts and curst thy birth
    With thousand plagues more than in purgatory;
      Thou thus whose spirit love in his fire refines,
      Come thou and read, admire, applaud my lines!

    L

    As in some countries far remote from hence,
    The wretched creature destined to die,
    Having the judgment due to his offence,
    By surgeons begged, their art on him to try,
      Which on the living work without remorse,
    First make incision on each mastering vein,
    Then staunch the bleeding, then transpierce the corse,
    And with their balms recure the wounds again,
      Then poison and with physic him restore;
    Not that they fear the hopeless man to kill,
    But their experience to increase the more: 
    Even so my mistress works upon my ill,
      By curing me and killing me each hour,
      Only to show her beauty’s sovereign power.

    LI

    Calling to mind since first my love begun,
    Th’uncertain times, oft varying in their course,
    How things still unexpectedly have run,
    As’t please the Fates by their resistless force;
      Lastly, mine eyes amazedly have seen
    Essex’s great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain,
    The quiet end of that long living Queen,
    This King’s fair entrance, and our peace with Spain,
      We and the Dutch at length ourselves to sever;
    Thus the world doth and evermore shall reel;
    Yet to my goddess am I constant ever,
    Howe’er blind Fortune turn her giddy wheel;
      Though heaven and earth prove both to me untrue,
      Yet am I still inviolate to you.

    LII

    What dost thou mean to cheat me of my heart,
    To take all mine and give me none again? 
    Or have thine eyes such magic or that art
    That what they get they ever do retain? 
      Play not the tyrant but take some remorse;
    Rebate thy spleen if but for pity’s sake;
    Or cruel, if thou can’st not, let us scorse,
    And for one piece of thine my whole heart take. 
      But what of pity do I speak to thee,
    Whose breast is proof against complaint or prayer? 
    Or can I think what my reward shall be
    From that proud beauty which was my betrayer! 
      What talk I of a heart when thou hast none? 
      Or if thou hast, it is a flinty one.