Montemayor's Diana

Page 280

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Should promise peace, and in so milde a brest?
Who would haue thought (it almost was in vaine)
That from her toong, distilling honie drops,
So fierce an answere should proceede againe,
And wordes she vtterea with so great disdaine,
Bittrer to me then gall, or wildest hops.
And, that I am deceiued in this ground
Of my faire Nymph, I ioy with all my hart:
Bicause I would not thinke, there could be found
In so great good a thing, that should redound
To so great ill, and to so bad a part.
It shall be therefore best for me ywisse
Not to suspect in her so foule a crime,
That she is hard, or that she cruell is,
But my mishap, that euer went amisse
Euen from my birth-day to this very time.
Bicause my paines should neuer be aboue
My ioies, and care before my sweete content
Should come: I am most constant in my loue,
Sans widowhood, like to the turtle doue,
That losse of her companion doth lament.
In liuing, and in louing too amaine,
I thinke I goe beyond her euery howre,
But yet I am not like to her againe,
In that I did not first a sweete obtaine,
Before I tasted of a bitter sowre.
All that my wofull minde should recreate,
The water, that is christall pure and cleere,
I cannot choose, nor otherwise but hate,
Bicause I would not see so bad a state,
And such a haplesse body wander heere.
Like as the snake, or adder that doth bite
I flie, with hastie foote, and doe not stay
In any place, where greene may giue delight,
For this doth leese his hew, and vigour quite,
Where hope begins to faile and to decay.
If musing all alone by chaunce I stay
Vpon my greefe, that smallest ioy denies,
And see some spring or fountaine in the way
I flie, and softly to my selfe I say,
Let that suffice, that runneth fro mine eies.
And if in taking some poore little pleasure
(If pleasure in a haplesse state I take)
And view the greene, the countries hope and treasure,

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