Poetry Archives

When, to my deadly pleasure,
When to my lively torment,
Lady, mine eyes remained
Joined, alas! to your beams.

With violence of heavenly
Beauty, tied to virtue;
Reason abashed retired;
Gladly my senses yielded.

Gladly my senses yielding,
Thus to betray my heart’s fort,
Left me devoid of all life.

They to the beamy suns went,
Where, by the death of all deaths,
Find to what harm they hastened.

Like to the silly Sylvan,
Burned by the light he best liked,
When with a fire he first met.

Yet, yet, a life to their death,
Lady you have reserved;
Lady the life of all love.

For though my sense be from me,
And I be dead, who want sense,
Yet do we both live in you.

Turned anew, by your means,
Unto the flower that aye turns,
As you, alas! my sun bends.

Thus do I fall to rise thus;
Thus do I die to live thus;
Changed to a change, I change not.

Thus may I not be from you;
Thus be my senses on you;
Thus what I think is of you;
Thus what I seek is in you;
All what I am, it is you.