AWAKE SWEET LOVE
Awake sweet love
1. Awake, sweet love, thou art return’d,
my heart, which long in absence mourn’d,
lives now in perfect joy.
Let love, which never absent dies,
now live for ever in eyes, whence came my first annoy.
Only herself hath seemed fair: she only I could love,
she only, drove me to despair, when she unkind did prove.
Despair did make me wish to die, that I my joys might end:
she only, which did make me fly, my state may now amend.
2. If she esteem thee now aught worth,
she will not grieve thy love henceforth which so despair hath prov’d.
Despair hath proved now in me
that love will not unconstant be, though long in vain I lov’d.
If she at last reward thy love and all the harms repair,
thy happiness will sweeter prove,
rais’d up from deep despair.
And if that now thou welcome be when thou with her dost meet,
She all the while but play’d with thee to make thy joys more sweet.