Anonymous

A SEEING friend, yet enemy to rest;

A wrangling passion, yet a gladsome thought;

A bad companion, yet a welcome guest;

A knowledge wished, yet found too soon unsought:

From heaven supposed, yet sure condemned to hell

Is jealousy, and there forlorn doth dwell.

And thence doth send fond fear and false suspect

To haunt our thoughts, bewitchèd with mistrust;

Which breeds in us the issue and effect

Both of conceits and actions far unjust;

The grief, the shame, the smart whereof doth prove

That jealousy’s both death and hell to love.

For what but hell moves in the jealous heart,

Where restless fear works out all wanton joys,

Which doth both quench and kill the loving part,

And cloys the mind with worse than known annoys,

Whose pressure far exceeds hell’s deep extremes?

Such life leads Love, entangled with misdeems.