Their anxious joy, constraint and constant pain?
For love is the most stormy sort of life
Inherently, to choose, for anyone.
For always some mistrust or foolish strife
Crops up in love, some cloud will dim the sun.
And as for we poor women, nothing can
We do when love goes wrong, but weep and think
Our lot is this, our cup of tears to drink.
Also, many spiteful tongues are ready
To gossip of us. Also men aren't true.
Their lust, their love fades quickly, burns unsteady,
They soon fall out of love and look for new.
But harm once done is done, though one may rue
For though most men may seem with love deep pierced,
The sharpest points are those which break the first.
~Chaucer Troilus and Criseyde, II 775 (Trans.)
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.
Lo, thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee and for myself no quiet find.
~William Shakespeare, Sonnet XXVII
