Love
Phaleuciack II
From A Poetical Rhapsody (1602), ed. A. H. Bullen (1890–91)
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.
Codex Note
Credited to "A. W." in Francis Davison's own manuscript list (Bullen prints the initials in square brackets).
Cite this poem
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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