- My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming;
- I love not less, though less the show appear;
- That love is merchandiz’d, whose rich esteeming,
- The owner’s tongue doth publish every where.
- Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
- When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
- As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,
- And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
- Not that the summer is less pleasant now
- Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
- But that wild music burthens every bough,
- And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
- Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
- Because I would not dull you with my song.