A PROPOSAL OF LOVE(Given to her in our early acquaintance)“Oh! if I thought it could be in a woman(As, if it can, I will presume in you)To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love,To keep her constancy in plight and youth,Outliving beauties outward with a mindThat doth renew swifter than blood decays:Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,That my integrity and truth to youMight be confronted with the match and weightOf such a winnowed purity in love—How were I then uplifted! But, alas,I am as true as truth’s simplicity,And simpler than the infancy of truth.”TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
(Given to her in our early acquaintance)
“Oh! if I thought it could be in a woman(As, if it can, I will presume in you)To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love,To keep her constancy in plight and youth,Outliving beauties outward with a mindThat doth renew swifter than blood decays:Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,That my integrity and truth to youMight be confronted with the match and weightOf such a winnowed purity in love—How were I then uplifted! But, alas,I am as true as truth’s simplicity,And simpler than the infancy of truth.”TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.