Love's Contrarieties

I smile sometimes amids my greatest grief,
Not for delight, for that long since is fled;
Despair did shut the gate against relief,
When love at first of death the sentence read.
But yet I smile sometimes in midst of pain,
To think what toys do toss my troubled head;
How most I wish, that most I should refrain,
And seek the thing that least I long to find;
And find the wound by which my heart is slain,
Yet want both skill and will to ease my mind.

Against my will I burn with free consent;
I live in pain, and in my pain delight;
I cry for death, yet am to live content;
I hate the day, yet never wish for night;
I freeze for cold, and yet refrain the fire;
I long to see, and yet I shun her sight;
I scald in sun, and yet no shade desire;
I live by death, and yet I wish to die;
I feel no hurt, and yet for help enquire;
I die by life, and yet my life defy.