Love

Phaleuciack II

by Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies) c. 1575–1602

From A Poetical Rhapsody (1602), ed. A. H. Bullen (1890–91)

Love

How, or where have I lost myself? Unhappy!
Dead nor live am I neither, and yet am both.
Through despair am I dead, by hope revived;
Weeping wake I the night from even to morning,
Sighing waste I the day from morn to evening.
Tears are drink to my thirst, by tears I thirst more;
Sighs are meat that I eat; I hunger eating;
Might I, oh that I might refrain my feeding!
Soon would ease to my heart by death be purchased.
Life and light do I lack, when I behold not
Those bright beams of her eyes, Apollo dark'ning;
Life and light do I lose when I behold them,
All as snow by the sun resolved to water.
Death and life I receive, her eyes beholding;
Death and life I refuse not in beholding,
So that, dead or alive, I may behold them.

✦ ✦ ✦

Credited to "A. W." in Francis Davison's own manuscript list (Bullen prints the initials in square brackets).

MLA

Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies). “Phaleuciack II.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-miscellanies/65/.

Chicago

Anonymous (Elizabethan miscellanies). “Phaleuciack II.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-elizabethan-miscellanies/65/.

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