Love

So tired are all my thoughts, that sense and spirits fail

by Thomas Campion 1567–1620

From The Third Book of Airs (c. 1617)

Love

So tired are all my thoughts, that sense and spirits fail:
Mourning I pine, and know not what I ail.
O what can yield ease to a mind
Joy in nothing that can find?

How are my powers fore-spoke? What strange distaste is this?
Hence, cruel hate of that which sweetest is!
Come, come delight! make my dull brain
Feel once heat of joy again.

The lover's tears are sweet, their mover makes them so;
Proud of a wound the bleeding soldiers grow.
Poor I alone, dreaming, endure
Grief that knows nor cause nor cure.

And whence can all this grow? even from an idle mind,
That no delight in any good can find.
Action alone makes the soul blest:
Virtue dies with too much rest.

✦ ✦ ✦

The Third Book of Airs (c. 1617)

MLA

Campion, Thomas. “So tired are all my thoughts, that sense and spirits fail.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/campion/73/.

Chicago

Campion, Thomas. “So tired are all my thoughts, that sense and spirits fail.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/campion/73/.

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