O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
He learn'd but surety-like to write for me,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;
No news but health from their physicians know;--
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,
And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those
Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'