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First Line: Love stood amazed at sweet beauty's pain
Last Line: And would, but cannot die.
Subject(s): Happiness; Joy; Delight


LOVE stood amazed at sweet beauty's pain:
Love would have said that all was but vain,
And gods but half divine;
But when love saw that beauty would die,
He all aghast, to heavens did cry,
O gods, what wrong is mine!

Then his tears bred in thoughts of salt brine,
Fell from his eyes, like rain in sunshine,
Expelled by rage of fire:
Yet in such wise as anguish affords,
He did express in these, his last words,
His infinite desire:

Are you fled fair? where are now those eyes,
Eyes but too fair, envied by the skies,
You, angry gods, do know,
With guiltless blood your sceptres you stain,
On poor true hearts, like tyrants, you reign
Unjust, why do you so?

Are you false gods? why then do you reign?
Are you just gods? why then have you slain
The life of love on earth.
Beauty, now thy face lives in the skies,
Beauty, now let me live in thine eyes,
Where bliss felt never death.

Then from high rock, the rock of despair,
He falls, in hope to smother in the air,
Or else on stones to burst,
Or on cold waves to spend his last breath,
Or his strange life to end by strange death,
But fate forbid the worst.

With pity moved the gods then change love
To Phœnix shape, yet cannot remove
His wonted property,
He loves the sun because it is fair,
Sleep he neglects, he lives but by air,
And would, but cannot die.





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