Behold what hap PYGMALION had, to frame
And carve his grief himself upon a stone:
My heavy fortune is much like the same,
I work on flint, and that's the cause I moan.
For hapless lo even with mine own desires,
I figured on the table of my heart;
The goodliest shape that the world's eye admires:
And so did perish by my proper art.
And still I toil to change the marble breast
Of her whose sweet Idea I adore:
Yet cannot find her breathe unto my rest.
Hard is her heart, and woe is me therefore.
O blessed he that joys his stone and art!
Unhappy I! to love a stony heart.
SONNET VIII.
Oft and in vain my rebel thoughts have ventured
To stop the passage of my vanquished heart;
And close the way, my friendly foe first entered:
Striving thereby to free my better part.
Whilst guarding thus the windows of my thought,
Where my heart's thief to vex me made her choice;
And thither all my forces to transport:
Another passage opens at her voice.
Her voice betrays me to her hand and eye,
My freedom's tyrant, glorying in her art:
But, ah! sweet foe! small is the victory,
With three such powers to plague one silly heart.
Yet my soul's sovereign! since I must resign;
Reign in my thoughts! My love and life are thine!
