Must Love Lament? Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCB DEDDF GHGGH IJIIJ KLMML NONNO BPBBP QRHHR STSSU EIEEI VV| My mistress lowers and saith I do not love | A |
| I do protest and seek with service due | B |
| In humble mind a constant faith to prove | C |
| But for all this I cannot her remove | C |
| From deep vain thought that I may not be true | B |
| - | |
| If oaths might serve ev'n by the Stygian lake | D |
| Which poets say the gods themselves do fear | E |
| I never did my vowed word forsake | D |
| For why should I whom free choice slave doth make | D |
| Else what in face than in my fancy bear | F |
| - | |
| My Muse therefore for only thou canst tell | G |
| Tell me the cause of this my causeless woe | H |
| Tell how ill thought disgraced my doing well | G |
| Tell how my joys and hopes thus foully fell | G |
| To so low ebb that wonted were to flow | H |
| - | |
| O this it is the knotted straw is found | I |
| In tender hearts small things engender hate | J |
| A horse's worth laid waste the Trojan ground | I |
| A three foot stool in Greece made trumpets sound | I |
| An ass's shade e'er now hath bred debate | J |
| - | |
| If Greeks themselves were moved with so small cause | K |
| To twist those broils which hardly would untwine | L |
| Should ladies fair be tied to such hard laws | M |
| As in their moods to take a ling'ring pause | M |
| I would it not their metal is too fine | L |
| - | |
| My hand doth not bear witness with my heart | N |
| She saith because I make no woeful lays | O |
| To paint my living death and endless smart | N |
| And so for one that felt god Cupid's dart | N |
| She thinks I lead and live too merry days | O |
| - | |
| Are poets then the only lovers true | B |
| Whose hearts are set on measuring a verse | P |
| Who think themselves well blest if they renew | B |
| Some good old dump that Chaucer's mistress knew | B |
| And use but you for matters to rehearse | P |
| - | |
| Then good Apollo do away thy bow | Q |
| Take harp and sing in this our versing time | R |
| And in my brain some sacred humour flow | H |
| That all the earth my woes sighs tears may know | H |
| And see you not that I fall low to rhyme | R |
| - | |
| As for my mirth how could I but be glad | S |
| Whilst that methought I justly made my boast | T |
| That only I the only mistress had | S |
| But now if e'er my face with joy be clad | S |
| Think Hannibal did laugh when Carthage lost | U |
| - | |
| Sweet lady as for those whose sullen cheer | E |
| Compared to me made me in lightness sound | I |
| Who stoic like in cloudy hue appear | E |
| Who silence force to make their words more dear | E |
| Whose eyes seem chaste because they look on ground | I |
| - | |
| Believe them not for physic true doth find | V |
| Choler adust is joyed in woman kind | V |
Sir Philip Sidney
(1)
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