LVI.
Fie! School of PATIENCE, fie! your lesson is
Far far too long to learn it without book.
What! a whole week without one piece of look!
And think I should not your large precepts miss?
When I might read those letters fair of bliss
Which in her face teach virtue: I could brook
Somewhat thy leaden counsels; which I took
As of a friend that meant not much amiss.
But now that I, alas, do want her sight;
What! dost thou think that I can ever take
In thy cold stuff a phlegmatic delight?
No, PATIENCE! If thou wilt my good; then make
Her come, and hear with patience my desire:
And then, with patience bid me bear my fire!
LVII.
Woe, having made with many fights his own,
Each sense of mine, each gift, each power of mind:
Grown now his slaves; he forced them out to find
The thoroughest words, fit for WOE'S self to groan.
Hoping that when they might find STELLA alone,
Before she could prepare to be unkind;
Her soul, armed but with such a dainty rind,
Should soon be pierced with sharpness of the moan.
She heard my plaints, and did not only hear,
But them (so sweet is she) most sweetly sing;
With that fair breast making WOE'S darkness clear.
A pretty case! I hoped her to bring
To feel my griefs: and she with face and voice,
So sweets my pains; that my pains me rejoice.
