And all in vain you strive against the stream;
⁠For by this black-fac'd night, desire's foul nurse,
⁠Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

'If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,
And every tongue more moving than your own,
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs,
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;
⁠For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,
⁠And will not let a false sound enter there;

'Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast;
And then my little heart were quite undone,
In his bedchamber to be barr'd of rest.
⁠No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,
⁠But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

'What have you urg'd that I cannot reprove?
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger;
I hate not love, but your device in love
That lends embracements unto every stranger.
⁠You do it for increase: O strange excuse!
⁠When reason is the bawd to lust's abuse.

'Call it not, love, for Love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name;
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;
⁠Which the hot tyrant stains