XVIII
O she must love my sorrows to assuage.
O God, what joy felt I when she did smile,
Whom killing grief before did cause to rage!
Beauty is able sorrow to beguile.
Out, traitor absence! thou dost hinder me,
And mak'st my mistress often to forget,
Causing me to rail upon her cruelty,
Whilst thou my suit injuriously dost let;
Again her presence doth astonish me,
And strikes me dumb as if my sense were gone;
Oh, is not this a strange perplexity?
In presence dumb, she hears not absent moan;
Thus absent presence, present absence maketh,
That hearing my poor suit, she it mistaketh.
