Love is Dead
Ring out your bells, let mourning shews be spread;
For Love is dead:
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain:
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And Faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Weep, neighbours, weep; do you not hear it said
That Love is dead?
His death-bed, peacock's folly;
His winding-sheet is shame;
His will, false-seeming holy;
His sole executor, blame.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read,
For Love is dead;
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress' marble heart;
Which epitaph containeth,
_Her eyes were once his dart_.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Alas, I lie; rage hath this error bred;
Love is not dead;
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In his unmatchèd mind,
Where she his counsel keepeth,
Till due deserts she find:
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a franzy,
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586)
