Sonnet XLII. The love which me so cruelly tormenteth

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

THE LOVE which me so cruelly tormenteth,

So pleasing is in my extremest pain,

That, all the more my sorrow it augmenteth,

The more I love and do embrace my bane.

Ne do I wish (for wishing were but vain)

To be acquit fro my continual smart;

But joy, her thrall for ever to remain,

And yield for pledge my poor captivéd heart;

The which, that it from her may never start,

Let her, if please her, bind with adamant chain:

And from all wandering loves, which mote pervert

His safe assurance, strongly it restrain.

Only let her abstain from cruelty,

And do me not before my time to die.