A Paradox

WHOSO terms Love a fire, may like a poet

Feign what he will, for certain cannot show it;

For fire ne’er burns but when the fuel’s near,

But Love doth at most distance most appear;

Yet out of fire water did never go;

But tears from Love abundantly do flow;

Fire still mounts upward, but Love oft descendeth;

Fire leaves the midst, Love to the centre tendeth;

Fire drys and hardens, Love doth mollify;

Fire doth consume, but Love doth fructify.

The powerful Queen of Love (fair Venus) came,

Descended from the sea, not from the flame;

Whence passions ebb and flow, and from the brain

Run to the heart, like streams, and back again.

Yea Love oft fills men’s breasts with melting snow,

Drowning their love-sick minds in floods of woe.

What, is Love water, then? it may be so;

But he saith truest that saith he doth not know.