WHAT is this strange and uncouth thing? -- To make me sigh, and seek, and faint, and die, Untill I had some place where I might sing, And serve thee; and not onely I, But all my wealth and familie, might combine To set thy honour up, as our designe. And then, when, after much delay, Much wrestling, many a combate, this deare end, So much desir'd, is giv'n, to take away My power to serve thee; to unbend All my abilities, my designes confound, And lay my threatnings bleeding on the ground. One ague dwelleth in my bones; Another in my soul (the memorie What I would do for thee, if once my grones Could be allow'd for harmonie): I am in all a weak, disabled thing, Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting. Besides, things sort not to my will, Ev'n when my will doth studie thy renown: Thou turnest th' edge of all things on me still, Taking me up to throw me down: So that, ev'n when my hopes seem to be sped, I am to grief alive, to them as dead. To have my aim, and yet to be Farther from it than when I bent my bow; To make my hopes my torture, and the fee Of all my woes another wo, Is in the midst of delicates to need, And ev'n in paradise to be a weed. Ah, my deare Father, ease my smart! These contrarieties crush me; these crosse actions Doe winde a rope about, and cut my heart: And yet, since these thy contradictions Are properly a crosse felt by thy Sonne With but foure words, my words, Thy will be done. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON CARPACCIO'S PICTURE: THE DREAM OF ST. URSALA; SONNET by AMY LOWELL THEY SAY - . by JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER AN EPITAPH by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE THE MOTHER IN THE HOUSE by HERMANN HAGEDORN AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS IN REMEMBRANCE by ADRA CAROLINE BATCHELDER ASLEEP, ASLEEP; MARTYDOM OF SAINT STEPHEN by LUCY ANN BENNETT |