Edmund Spenser

Amoretti 42. The love which me so cruelly tormenteth

The love which me so cruelly tormenteth
So pleasing is in my extreamest paine,
That, all the more my sorrow it augmenteth,
The more I love and doe embrace my bane.
Ne do I wish (for wishing were but vaine)
To be acquit fro my continual smart,
But ioy her thrall for ever to remayne,
And yield for pledge my poor and captyved hart,
The which, that it from her may never start,
Let her, yf please her, bynd with adamant chayne,
And from all wandring loves, which mote pervart
His safe assurance, strongly it restrayne.
  Onely let her abstaine from cruelty,
  And doe me not before my time to dy.