The Broken Heart
- He is stark mad, who ever says,
- That he hath been in love an hour,
- Yet not that love so soon decays,
- But that it can ten in less space devour;
- Who will believe me, if I swear
- That I have had the plague a year?
- Who would not laugh at me, if I should say,
- I saw a flask of powder burn a day?
-
- Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
- If once into love's hands it come!
- All other griefs allow a part
- To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
- They come to us, but us Love draws,
- He swallows us, and never chaws:
- By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks to die,
- He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.
- If 'twere not so, what did become
- Of my heart, when I first saw thee?
- I brought a heart into the room,
- But from the room, I carried none with me:
- If it had gone to thee, I know
- Mine would have taught thine heart to show
- More pity unto me: but Love, alas,
- At one first blow did shiver it as glass
-
- Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
- Nor any place be empty quite,
- Therefore I think my breast hath all
- Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
- And now as broken glasses show
- A hundred lesser faces, so
- My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore
- But after one such love, can love no more.
From: Songs and Sonnets, 1633.
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