As the tree's sap doth seek the root below
In winter, in my winter[77] now I go
Where none but thee, the eternal root
Of true love, I may know.
Nor thou, nor thy religion, dost control
The amorousness of an harmonious soul;
But thou wouldst have that love thyself: as thou
Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now.
Thou lov'st not, till from loving more thou free
My soul: who ever gives, takes liberty:
Oh, if thou car'st not whom I love,
Alas, thou lov'st not me!
Seal then this bill of my divorce to all
On whom those fainter beams of love did fall;
Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be
On face, wit, hopes, (false mistresses), to thee.
Churches are best for prayer that have least light:
To see God only, I go out of sight;
And, to 'scape stormy days, I choose
An everlasting night
To do justice to this poem, the reader must take some trouble to enter
into the poet's mood.
It is in a measure distressing that, while I grant with all my heart the
claim of his "Muse's white sincerity," the taste in--I do not say
_of_--some of his best poems should be such that I will not present them.
Out of twenty-three _Holy Sonnets_, every one of which, I should almost
say, possesses something remarkable, I choose three. Rhymed after the
true Petrarchian fashion, their rhythm is often as bad as it can be to be
called rhythm at all.
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