Weak as we are, and almost breathless swim
In this deep water. But touch the ground
For us no longer time than a dove’s
Motion when the head’s plucked off, O, my petition was
Set down in ice, which by hot grief uncandied
Melts into drops; so sorrow, wanting form,
Is pressed with deeper matter. O woe,
You cannot read it there; there through my tears,
Like wrinkled pebbles in a glass stream.
Pray you, say nothing, pray you,
Who cannot feel nor see the rain, being in it.
Let the event, that never-erring arbitrator, tell us
What we know all ourselves, and let us follow
The becking of our chance. This world’s a city full of straying streets,
And death’s the market-place, where each one meets.

I will love her, I must, I ought to do so, and I dare,
And all this justly. Fall on like fire,
And pure, as wind-fanned snow,
And run, swifter than wind upon a field of corn,
Curling the wealthy ears, never flew.

Open her before the wind, you’ll lose all else.
Swim with your bodies. Bow down your stubborn bodies.
To outdure danger, to delay it longer,
The glass is running now that cannot finish.
You are perfect. Now I am perfect. Today extinct.
Now I am extinct. Our argument is love.

Shall anything that loves me perish for me?