| MY love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming | |
| I love not less, though less the show appear: | |
| That love is merchandiz’d whose rich esteeming | |
| The owner’s tongue doth publish every where. | |
| Our love was new, and then but in the spring, | 5 |
| When I was wont to greet it with my lays; | |
| As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing, | |
| And stops her pipe in growth of riper days: | |
| Not that the summer is less pleasant now | |
| Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, | 10 |
| But that wild music burthens every bough, | |
| And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. | |
| Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, | |
| Because I would not dull you with my song. |