Contemnenti by Phineas Fletcher

Continual burning, yet no fire or fuel,
Chill icicle frosts in midst of Summer’s frying,
A Hell most pleasing, and a Heav’n most cruel,
A death still living, and a life still dying,
And whatsoever pains poore hearts can prove,
I feel and utter, in one word — I LOVE.

Two fires, of love and grief, each upon either,
And both upon one poore heart ever feeding;
Chill cold despair, most cold, yet cooling neither,
In midst of fires his ycio frosts is breeding:
So fires and frosts, to make a perfect hell,
Meet in one breast, in one house friendly dwell.

Tir’d in this toylsome way — my deep affection —
I ever forward runne, and never ease me:
I dare not swerve, her eye is my direction:
A heavie grief, and weighty love oppresse me.
Desire and hope, two spurres, that forth compell’d me;
But awfull fear, a bridle, still withheld me.

Twice have I plung’d, and fiung, and strove to cast
This double burden from my weary heart:
Fast though I runne, and stop, they sit as fast:
Her looks my bait, which she doth seld impart.
Thus fainting, still some inne I wish and crave;
Either her maiden bosome, or my grave.

From: Grosart, Alexander B (ed), The Poems of Phineas Fletcher, B.D., Rector of Hilgay, Norfolk: For the First Time Collected and Edited with Memoir, Essay, Notes, and Facsimiles in Four Volumes, Volume 3, 1869, C Tiplady: Blackburn, pp. 227-228.
(http://archive.org/stream/poemsphineasfle00unkngoog#page/n231/mode/2up)

Date: 1632

By: Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650)