Image of her whom I love, more than she, Whose fair impression in my faithful heart,Makes me her medal, and makes her love me, As kings do coins, to which their stamps impartThe value: go, and take my heart from hence, Which now is grown too great and good for me:Honours oppress weak spirits, and our sense Strong objects dull; the more, the less we see.
When you are gone, and reason gone with you, Then Fantasy is Queen and soul, and all;She can present joys meaner than you do; Convenient, and more proportional.So, if I dream I have you, I have you, For, all our joys are but fantastical.And so I scape the pain, for pain is true; And sleep which locks up sense, doth lock out all.
After a such fruition I shall wake, And, but the waking, nothing shall repent;And shall to love more thankful sonnets make, Then if more honour, tears, and pains were spent.But dearest heart, and dearer image stay; Alas, true joys at best are dream enough;Though you stay here you pass too fast away: For even at first life's taper is a snuff.
Filled with her love, may I be rather grownMad with much heart, then idiot with none.
