green thought's reason.
Prisoner I am unto the eye I gaze on;
Eternally my love's flame is in burning;
A mortal shaft still wounds me in my mourning;
Thus prisoned, burnt and slain, the spirit, soul and reason.
What tides me then since these pains which annoy me,
In my despair are evermore increasing?
The more I love, less is my pain's releasing;
That cursed be the fortune which destroys me,
The hour, the month, the season, and the cause,
When love first made me thrall to lovers' laws.

IX

Love hath I followed all too long, nought gaining;
And sighed I have in vain to sweet what smarteth,
But from his brow a fiery arrow parteth,
Thinking that I should him resist not plaining.
But cowardly my heart submiss remaining,
Yields to receive what shaft thy fair eye darteth.
Well do I see thine eye my bale imparteth,
And that save death no hope I am detaining.
For what is he can alter fortune's sliding?
One in his bed consumes his life away,
Other in wars, another in the sea;
The like effects in me have their abiding;
For heavens avowed my fortune should be such,
That I should die by loving far too much.

X

My God, my God, how much I love my goddess,
Whose virtues rare, unto the heavens arise!
My God, my God, how much I love her eyes
One shining bright, the other full of hardness!
My God, my God, how much I love her wisdom,
Whose works may ravish heaven's richest maker!
Of whose eyes' joys if I might be partaker
Then to my soul a holy rest would come.
My God, how much I love to hear her speak!
Whose hands I kiss and ravished oft rekisseth,
When she stands wotless whom so much she blesseth.
Say then, what mind this honest love would break;
Since her perfections pure, withouten blot,
Makes her beloved of thee, she knoweth not?

THE SEVENTH DECADE

I

The first created held a joyous bower,
A flowering field, the world's sole wonderment,
High Paradise, from whence a woman's power
Enticed him to fall to endless banishment.
This on the banks of Euphrates did stand,
Till the first Mover, by his wondrous might,
Planted it in thine eyes, thy face, thy hands,
From whence the world receives his fairest light.
Thy cheeks contain choice flowers; thy eyes, two suns;
Thy