Sonnet L. Long languishing in double malady

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

LONG languishing in double malady

Of my heart’s wound, and of my body’s grief;

There came to me a leech, that would apply

Fit medicines for my body’s best relief.

Vain man, quoth I, that hast but little prief

In deep discovery of the mind’s disease;

Is not the heart of all the body chief,

And rules the members as itself doth please?

Then, with some cordials, seek first to appease

The inward languor of my wounded heart,

And then my body shall have shortly ease:

But such sweet cordials pass physician’s art.

Then, my life’s leech! do your skill reveal;

And, with one salve, both heart and body heal.