1 Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
2 My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain,
3 Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
4 The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
5 If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
6 Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so,
7 As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
8 No news but health from their physicians know;
9 For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
10 And in my madness might speak ill of thee;
11 Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
12 Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
13 That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
14 Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.
|
|