Then be it so and let us part,
Since love like mine has fail'd to move thee;
But do not think this constant heart
Can ever cease, ingrate, to love thee.
No—spite of all thy cold disdain,
I'll bless the hour when first I met thee,
And rather bear whole years of pain
Than e'en for one short hour forget thee.
                                               Forget thee! No.

Still Mem'ry now my only friend,
Shall with her soothing art endeavour
My present anguish to suspend,
By painting pleasures lost for ever.
She shall the happy hours renew.
When full of hope and smiles I met thee,
And little thought the day to view
When thou wouldst wish me to forget thee.
                                               Forget thee! No.

Yet, have I liv'd to view that day,
To mourn my past destructive blindness,
To see now turn'd with scorn away
Those eyes once fill'd with answering kindness.
But go—farewell and be thou blest,
If thoughts of what I feel will let thee:
Yet, though thy Image kills my rest,
'Twere greater anguish to forget thee.
                                               Forget thee! No.

To what a cumbersome unwieldiness
And burdensome corpulence my love had grown,
But that I did, to make it less,
And keep it in proportion,
Give it a diet, made it feed upon
That which love worst endures, discretion.

Above one sigh a day I allowed him not,
Of which my fortune and my faults had part;
And if sometimes by stealth he got
A she sigh from my mistress’s heart,
And thought to feast on that, I let him see
’Twas neither very sound, nor meant for me.

If he wrung from me a tear, I brined it so
With scorn or shame, that him it nourished not;
If he sucked hers, I let him know
’Twas not a tear which he had got;
His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;
For eyes which roll towards all weep not, but sweat.

Whatever he would dictate, I wrote that,
But burnt my letters; when she wrote to me,
And that that favour made him fat,
I said, if any title be
Conveyed by this, ah, what does it avail
To be the fortieth name in an entail?

Thus I reclaimed my buzzard love, to fly
At what, and when, and how, and where I choose;
Now negligent of sport I lie,
And now as other falconers use,
I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh and weep;
And the game killed or lost, go talk, and sleep.