No Action Hard To Affection.

Love bade me ask a gift,
And I no more did move
But this, that I might shift
Still with my clothes my love:
That favour granted was;
Since which, though I love many,
Yet so it comes to pass
That long I love not any.

He that will not love must be
My scholar, and learn this of me:
There be in love as many fears
As the summer's corn has ears:
Sighs, and sobs, and sorrows more
Than the sand that makes the shore:
Freezing cold and fiery heats,
Fainting swoons and deadly sweats;
Now an ague, then a fever,
Both tormenting lovers ever.
Would'st thou know, besides all these,
How hard a woman 'tis to please,
How cross, how sullen, and how soon
She shifts and changes like the moon.
How false, how hollow she's in heart:
And how she is her own least part:
How high she's priz'd, and worth but small;
Little thou'lt love, or not at all.

Love love begets, then never be
Unsoft to him who's smooth to thee.
Tigers and bears, I've heard some say,
For proffer'd love will love repay:
None are so harsh, but if they find
Softness in others, will be kind;
Affection will affection move,
Then you must like because I love.

Love is a kind of war: hence those who fear!
No cowards must his royal ensigns bear.

I do love I know not what,
Sometimes this and sometimes that;
All conditions I aim at.

But, as luckless, I have yet
Many shrewd disasters met
To gain her whom I would get.

Therefore now I'll love no more
As I've doted heretofore:
He who must be, shall be poor.

I'll get me hence,
Because no fence
Or fort that I can make here,
But love by charms,
Or else by arms
Will storm, or starving take here.