Before the Birth of One of Her Children
All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joys attend;
No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with death's parting blow is sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend.
How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot's untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that's due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know
I have Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms.
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes, my dear remains.
And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me,
These O protect from step-dame's injury.
And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honour my absent hearse;
And kiss this paper for thy love's dear sake,
Who with salt tears this last farewell did take.
poem by Anne Bradstreet
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Related quotes
All White Continued
Ah, beautiful sweet woman, made in vain,
Since Launcelot is dead and only I,
Alas for this new world of recreant men,
Remain in age Love's creed to justify
And prove his right to fools who would deny!
Heaven's help shall win her, though she long hath been
Child of a doubting Age. Or let me die
At her dear feet, my Guenevere, my queen.
--Ride therefore forth, my soul, on this last quest.
Oblivion soon shall fold all in its arms.
Love, if she love thee or love not. The loss
Is hers, not thine, since each thing else is dross;
Not thine, whom Heaven makes whole and no hurt harms,
Even that of death, so thou have loved thy best.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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To Isa in Heaven
Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven! — Young.
Where is she now?
Oh! Isa! tell me where thou art?
If death has laid his hand upon thy brow,
Has he not touched my heart?
Has he not laid it in the grave with thine,
And buried all my joys?—Speak! thou art mine!
If thou were dead,
I would not ask thee to reply;
But thou art living—thy dear soul has fled
To heaven, where it can never die!
Then why not come to me? Return—return
And comfort me, for I have much to mourn!
I sigh all day!
I mourn for thee the livelong night!
And when the next night comes, thou art away,
And so is absent my delight!
Oh! as the lone dove for his absent mate,
So is my soul for thee disconsolate!
I long for death—
For any thing—to be with thee!
I did inhale, alas! thy dying breath,
That it might have some power on me
To make me what thou art!—but, thou art dead!
And I am here!—it strengthened me instead!
Joy there is none—
It went into the grave with thee!
And grief, because my spirit is alone,
Is all that comes to comfort me!
The very air I breathe is turned to sighs,
And all mine soul is melting from mine eyes!
I hear, at even,
The liquid carol of birds;
Their music makes me think of thee in heaven,
It is so much like thy sweet words.
The brooklet whispers, as it runs along,
Our first love-story with its liquid tongue.
Wake, Isa! wake!
And come back in this world again!
Oh! come down to me, for my soul's dear sake,
And cure me of this trying pain!
I would give all that earth to man can be,
If thou wert only in this world with me!
Day after day
I seek thee, but thou art not near!
I sit down on thy grave in the cold clay,
And listen for thy soul!—oh! dear!
And when some withered leaf falls from the tree,
I start as if thy soul had spoke to me!
And so it is,
And so it ever more must ever be
To him, who has been robbed of all the bliss
He ever knew, by loving thee!
For misery, in thine absence, is my wife!
What joy had been, hadst thou remained in life!
It is now even;
The birds have sung themselves to sleep;
And all the stars seem coming out of heaven,
As if to look upon me weep!—
Oh! let me not look up to thee in vain,
But come back to me in this world again!
poem by Thomas Holley Chivers (1842)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Ballad III
Now in good sooth my joy is vanished clean,
And all my gladness changed to grievous ire :
What profits it, dear flower ! since I have seen
Thy going hence, that I could never tire
When thou wast here
To greet thee every day in every year ?
Delight that was is grown disaster fell :
Alas ! How can I bid thee now farewell !
My love, my choice, my lady and my queen,
For whom my heart is kindled in desire,
What shall I do when love from what hath been
Taketh the gold and leaveth me the mire ?
Nor far nor near
Is comfort found, nor any pleasant cheer.
Gone is thy beauty, that did all excel :
Alas ! How can I bid thee now farewell !
Thine is the deed, O evil tongue and keen !
Forged for my fate upon an anvil dire :
Fortune, that loveth not my hand, I ween,
Nor yet my pen, did in the task conspire.
No help is clear
Save Death, when God shall grant him to appear
Else thou alone could'st win me out of hell.
Alas ! How can I bid thee now farewell !
Ah, simple and dear !
At least behold me and my mourning drear.
Thy loss is torment more than I can tell.
Alas ! How can I bid thee now farewell !
poem by Christine de Pizan
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XXX
THE RELIGION OF LOVE
So thou but love me, dear, with thy whole heart
What care I for the rest, for good or ill?
What for the peace of soul good deeds impart,
What for the tears unholy dreams distil?
These cannot make my joy, nor shall they kill.
Thou only perfect peace and virtue art
And holiness for me and strength and will,
So thou but love me with a perfect heart.
I ask thee now no longer to be wise;
No longer to be good, but loving me.
I ask thee nothing now but only this.
Henceforth my Bible, dear, shall be thine eyes,
My beads thy lips, my prayers thy constancy,
My heaven thine arms, eternity thy kiss.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Written A Year After The Events
Alas! how am I chang'd! Where be the tears,
The sobs, and forc'd suspensions of the breath,
And all the dull desertions of the heart,
With which I hung o'er my dead mother's corse?
Where be the blest subsidings of the storm
Within, the sweet resignedness of hope
Drawn heavenward, and strength of filial love,
In which I bow'd me to my father's will?
My God, and my Redeemer! keep not thou
My soul in brute and sensual thanklessness
Seal'd up; oblivious ever of that dear grace,
And health restor'd to my long-loved friend,
Long-lov'd, and worthy known. Thou didst not leave
Her soul in death! O leave not now, my Lord,
Thy servants in far worse, in spiritual death!
And darkness blacker than those feared shadows
Of the valley all must tread. Lend us thy balms,
Thou dear Physician of the sin-sick soul,
And heal our cleansed bosoms of the wounds
With which the world has pierc'd us thro' and thro'.
Give us new flesh, new birth. Elect of heav'n
May we become; in thine election sure
Contain'd, and to one purpose stedfast drawn,
Our soul's salvation!
Thou, and I, dear friend,
With filial recognition sweet, shall know
One day the face of our dear mother in heaven;
And her remember'd looks of love shall greet
With looks of answering love; her placid smiles
Meet with a smile as placid, and her hand
With drops of fondness wet, nor fear repulse.
Be witness for me, Lord, I do not ask
Those days of vanity to return again
(Nor fitting me to ask, nor thee to give).
Vain loves and wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid,
Child of the dust as I am, who so long
My captive heart steep'd in idolatry
And creature-loves. Forgive me, O my Maker!
If in a mood of grief I sin almost
In sometimes brooding on the days long past,
And from the grave of time wishing them back,
Days of a mother's fondness to her child,
Her little one.
O where be now those sports,
And infant play-games? where the joyous troops
Of children, and the haunts I did so love?
O my companions, O ye loved names
Of friend or playmate dear; gone are ye now;
Gone diverse ways; to honour and credit some,
And some, I fear, to ignominy and shame!
I only am left, with unavailing grief
To mourn one parent dead, and see one live
Of all life's joys bereft and desolate:
Am left with a few friends, and one, above
The rest, found faithful in a length of years,
Contented as I may, to bear me on
To the not unpeaceful evening of a day
Made black by morning storms!
September 1797
poem by Charles Lamb
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Sonnet 31: Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts
Thy bosom is endearèd with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposèd dead,
And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought burièd.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things removed that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give;
That due of many now is thine alone.
Their images I loved, I view in thee,
And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.
poem by William Shakespeare
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A Dead Friend
I.
Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?
Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.
Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?
II.
Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?
Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?
Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?
III.
Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.
Time and chance may sear
Hope with grief, and death may part
Hand from hand's clasp here:
Memory, blind with tears that start,
Sees through every tear
All that made thee, as thou art,
Dear.
IV.
True and tender, single-souled,
What should memory do
Weeping o'er the trust we hold
True?
Known and loved of few,
But of these, though small their fold,
Loved how well were you!
Change, that makes of new things old,
Leaves one old thing new;
Love which promised truth, and told
True.
V.
Kind as heaven, while earth's control
Still had leave to bind
Thee, thy heart was toward man's whole
Kind.
Thee no shadows blind
Now: the change of hours that roll
Leaves thy sleep behind.
Love, that hears thy death-bell toll
Yet, may call to mind
Scarce a soul as thy sweet soul
Kind.
VI.
How should life, O friend, forget
Death, whose guest art thou?
Faith responds to love's regret,
How?
Still, for us that bow
Sorrowing, still, though life be set,
Shines thy bright mild brow.
Yea, though death and thou be met,
Love may find thee now
Still, albeit we know not yet
How.
VII.
Past as music fades, that shone
While its life might last;
As a song-bird's shadow flown
Past!
Death's reverberate blast
Now for music's lord has blown
Whom thy love held fast.
Dead thy king, and void his throne:
Yet for grief at last
Love makes music of his own
Past.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Licia Sonnets 18
I swear, fair Licia, still for to be thine,
By heart, by eyes, by what I held most dear;
Thou checked mine oath, and said: these were not mine,
And that I had no right by them to swear.
Then by my sighs, my passions, and my tears,
My vows, my prayers, my sorrow, and my love,
My grief, my joy, my hope, and hopeless fears,
My heart is thine, and never shall remove.
These are not thine, though sent unto thy view,
All else I grant, by right they are thine own;
Let these suffice that what I swear is true,
And more than this if that it could be known.
So shall all these though troubles ease my grief;
If that they serve to work in thee belief.
poem by Giles Fletcher The Elder
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Sonnet 42: That thou hast her, it is not all my grief
That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:
Thou dost love her because thou know'st I love her,
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,
And, losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross.
But here's the joy: my friend and I are one,
Sweet flattery! Then she loves but me alone.
poem by William Shakespeare
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The Chamois Hunter's Love
Thy heart is in the upper world, where fleet the chamois bounds;
Thy heart is where the mountain-fir shakes to the torrent-sounds;
And where the snow-peaks gleam like stars, through the stillness of the air,
And where the Lauwine's peal is heart - Hunter! thy heart is there!
I know thou lovest me well, dear friend! but better, better far,
Thou lovest that high and haughty life, with rocks and storms at war;
In the green sunny vales with me, thy spirit would but pine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
And I will not seek to woo thee down from those thy native heights,
With the sweet song, our land's own song, of pastoral delights;
For thou must live as eagles live, thy path is not as mine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
And I will leave my blessed home, my father's joyous hearth,
With all the voices meeting there in tenderness and mirth,
With all the kind and laughing eyes that in its firelight shine,
To sit forsaken in thy hut, yet know that thou art mine!
It is my youth, it is my bloom, it is my glad free heart,
That I cast away for thee - for thee, all reckless as thou art!
With tremblings and with vigils lone, I bind myself to dwell,
Yet, yet I would not change that lot, oh no! I love too well!
A mournful thing is love which grows to one so wild as thou,
With that bright restlessness of eye, that tameless fire of brow.
Mournful! - but dearer far I call its mingled fear and pride,
And the trouble of its happiness, than aught on earth beside.
To listen for thy step in vain, to start at every breath,
To watch through long long nights of storm, to sleep and dream of death,
To wake in doubt and loneliness - this doom I know is mine
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
That I may greet thee from thine Alps, when thence thou comest at last,
That I may hear thy thrilling voice tell o'er each danger past,
That I may kneel and pray for thee, and win thee aid divine -
For this I will be thine, my love! for this I will be thine!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Give to Love
Love came knocking on thy door
With you in sight to love and adore
But thine did give
All that thou have and
need to live?
You gave thine lips for love to speak
You gave thine heart for love's heart's weak
You gave thine face, to love to trace
its tears across thee a sorrowful place
thou give to thy loss when it comes to love!
You gave thine soul to love's control
You gave love thy hand to hold
You gave thy feet for love to kiss
You gave thy happiness to love's bliss
You gave thy breast for love to touch
You gave thine body for love to clutch.
But what did love give thee?
Love took and took and left thee with nothing!
With nothing now you are at peace, thou art free!
This is what love did to me!
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Autumn
Farewell! thou dying Year, farewell!
Thy reign is almost o'er;
Fled the freshness of vernal hours,
The glory of thy summer bowers,-
And e'en thy last pale ling'ring flowers
Will soon be here no more!
'Tis sad to see the hues of death
Fast stealing o'er thy bloom,
To hear the fitful Autumn gale
Sweep through the lonely wood and vale,
Breathing its low, prophetic wail,
O'er thy approaching doom!
To me, in every passing breeze,
There is a tone of grief,
Recalling hopes of vanished years,
Now only seem thro' Memory's tears,-
In every falling leaf!
Perhaps there are bright eyes, that weep
To see thee pass away,
Who in thy course, departing year,
Have ne'er beend imm'd by sorrow's tear;
And blest with all of bright and dear,
Would gladly woo thy stay.
But there are some, whose hearts are glad,
Thy darksome reign is o'er,-
Who would not live thine hours again,
For riches of the earth and main;
But joy those days of care and pain,
To them, can come no more.
For thou hast seen the dearest ties
Of earthly feelings broken!
To be renewed, oh! never more,
Unless on that eternal shore,
Where, grief and death forever oe'r,
No parting words are spoken!
Then fare thee well, departing Year!
I would not woo thy stay:
Thy sighing winds breathe of the tomb;
Thy fading roses speak the doom
Of the heart's cherish'd hopes-whose bloom,
Like thine, has passed away!
poem by Thomas Holley Chivers
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Amoretti LXVIII: Most Glorious Lord of Life
Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day,
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin:
And having harrow'd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean wash'd from sin,
May live for ever in felicity.
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love thee for the same again:
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought,
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
poem by Edmund Spenser
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So Let Us Love
Most glorious Lord of life! that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom Thou diddest die,
Being, with thy dear blood, clean washed from sin,
May live for ever in felicity;
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same again;
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought:
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
poem by Edmund Spenser
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To Henry, Written to a Russian Air
How I hail this morn's appearing!
It will thee, my love, restore:
Safety danger past endearing,
Sure we meet to part no more!
Fame is thine, lo! crowds aver it,
And her smile is dear to thee;
But I charge thee, don't prefer it
E'er again to home and me.
Thou, thy country's call obeying,
Hast her battles nobly fought;
And, thy ready zeal repaying,
See, she gives the laurels sought.
But have I no claims, my rover?
Claims as fondly dear to thee?
Yes, O yes! and, wandering over,
Thou wilt rest with love and me.
Ha! methinks, thy glances reading,
From thine eyes my fate I know;
Duty still love's claim impeding,
Thou again must seek the foe.
Of my fears too dread revival!
Yet, with tearful joy I see,
Duty is the only rival
Potent over love and me.
poem by Amelia Opie
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To the Memory of
I once could hope—alas! no more
Her bright wings wave for me;
The sunlit hours of life are o'er,
I weep, dear love, for thee!
And in those tears—and in that sigh
Will fond remembrance dwell;
'Tis all remains when dear ones lie
Within death's darksome cell.
So young! so pure!—alas! that thou
In marble tomb should sleep!
And leave the weary heart and brow
Thy vigils lone to keep.
And yet 'tis better thus than feel
The crushed heart's mad despair;
Alas! no balm those woes may heal
Love—death—have planted there.
Farewell! farewell! my buried love,
No pangs may wring thy heart;
Enough for me to gaze above,
To meet where none may part!
poem by Edward Henry Bickersteth
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The Legacy
My dearest Love! when thou and I must part,
And th' icy hand of death shall seize that heart
Which is all thine; within some spacious will
Ile leave no blanks for Legacies to fill:
Tis my ambition to die one of those
Who but himself hath nothing to dispose.
And since that is already thine, what need
I to re-give it by some newer deed?
Yet take it once again. Free circumstance
Does oft the value of mean things advance:
Who thus repeats what he bequeath'd before,
Proclaims his bounty richer then his store.
But let me not upon my love bestow
What is not worth the giving. I do ow
Somwhat to dust: my bodies pamper'd care
Hungry corruption and the worm will share.
That mouldring relick which in earth must lie
Would prove a gift of horrour to thine eie.
With this cast ragge of my mortalitie
Let all my faults and errours buried be.
And as my sear-cloth rots, so may kind fate
Those worst acts of my life incinerate.
He shall in story fill a glorious room
Whose ashes and whose sins sleep in one Tomb.
If now to my cold hearse thou deign to bring
Some melting sighs as thy last offering,
My peacefull exequies are crown'd. Nor shall
I ask more honour at my Funerall.
Thou wilt more richly balm me with thy tears
Then all the Nard fragrant Arabia bears.
And as the Paphian Queen by her griefs show'r
Brought up her dead Loves Spirit in a flow'r:
So by those precious drops rain'd from thine eies,
Out of my dust, O may some vertue rise!
And like thy better Genius thee attend,
Till thou in my dark Period shalt end.
Lastly, my constant truth let me commend
To him thou choosest next to be thy friend.
For (witness all things good) I would not have
Thy Youth and Beauty married to my grave,
'Twould shew thou didst repent the style of wife
Should'st thou relapse into a single life.
They with preposterous grief the world delude
Who mourn for their lost Mates in solitude;
Since Widdowhood more strongly doth enforce
The much lamented lot of their divorce.
Themselves then of their losses guilty are
Who may, yet will not suffer a repaire.
Those were Barbarian wives that did invent
Weeping to death at th' Husbands Monument,
But in more civil Rites She doth approve
Her first, who ventures on a second Love;
For else it may be thought, if She refrain,
She sped so ill Shee durst not trie again.
Up then my Love, and choose some worthier one
Who may supply my room when I am gone;
So will the stock of our affection thrive
No less in death, then were I still alive.
And in my urne I shall rejoyce, that I
Am both Testatour thus and Legacie.
poem by Henry King
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Ah, but Sweet Love
Ah, but such bitter sweet power
Your hands thy doth hold
For love to be this heavenly
Or mere memory to be this bold
Frantic, i am with worry
For i am under thy spell
I've found myself engulfed and entwined
In thine most beguiling of wishing wells
I cannot grant thee sweet permission
To stem this fire that burns
For i must be properly asked
Even though bodies doth yearn
So rescue me out of thine well dear sir
And allow for me to be proper and apt
For casual daliances i n'er practice
And this dear sir 'tis a fact
poem by Theodora Onken
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Cease smilng, Dear! a little while be sad
Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad,
Here in the silence, under the wan moon;
Sweet are thine eyes, but how can I be glad,
Knowing they change so soon?
For Love's sake, Dear, be silent! Cover me
In the deep darkness of thy falling hair:
Fear is upon me and the memory
Of what is all men's share.
O could this moment be perpetuate!
Must we grow old, and leaden-eyed and gray,
And taste no more the wild and passionate
Love sorrows of to-day?
Grown old, and faded, Sweet! and past desire,
Let memory die, lest there be too much ruth,
Remembering the old, extinguished fire
Of our divine, lost youth.
O red pomegranate of thy perfect mouth!
My lips' life-fruitage, might I taste and die
Here in thy garden, where the scented south
Wind chastens agony;
Reap death from thy live lips in one long kiss,
And look my last into thine eyes and rest:
What sweets had life to me sweeter than this
Swift dying on thy breast?
Or, if that may not be, for Love's sake, Dear!
Keep silence still, and dream that we shall lie,
Red mouth to mouth, entwined, and always hear
The south wind's melody,
Here in thy garden, through the sighing boughs,
Beyond the reach of time and chance and change,
And bitter life and death, and broken vows,
That sadden and estrange.
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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Sonnet 142: Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate
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!
poem by William Shakespeare
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