A Dialogue Between Sir Henry Wotton And Mr. Donne
- [W.]
- If her disdain least change in you can move,
- You do not love,
- For when that hope gives fuel to the fire,
- You sell desire.
- Love is not love, but given free;
- And so is mine; so should yours be.
- [D.]
- Her heart, that weeps to hear of others' moan,
- To mine is stone.
- Her eyes, that weep a stranger's eyes to see,
- Joy to wound me.
- Yet I so well affect each part,
- As—caused by them—I love my smart.
- [W.]
- Say her disdainings justly must be graced
- With name of chaste;
- And that she frowns lest longing should exceed,
- And raging breed;
- So her disdains can ne'er offend,
- Unless self-love take private end.
- [D.]
- 'Tis love breeds love in me, and cold disdain
- Kills that again,
- As water causeth fire to fret and fume,
- Till all consume.
- Who can of love more rich gift make,
- That to Love's self for love's own sake?
- I 'll never dig in quarry of an heart
- To have no part,
- Nor roast in fiery eyes, which always are
- Canicular.
- Who this way would a lover prove,
- May show his patience, not his love.
- A frown may be sometimes for physic good,
- But not for food;
- And for that raging humour there is sure
- A gentler cure.
- Why bar you love of private end,
- Which never should to public tend?
From: Songs and Sonnets, 1633.
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