from Urania by Lady Mary Wroth Sweet solitariness,1 joy to those hearts That feel the pleasure of love's sporting darts, Grudge me 2 not, though a vassal to his might, And a poor subject to curst 3 changing's spite, To rest in you, or rather restless 4 move                                      5 In your contents to sorrow for my love. A love, which living lives as dead to me, As holy relics which in boxes be Placed in a chest, that overthrows my joy, Shut up in change, which more than plagues destroy.       10 These, O you solitariness, may both endure, And be a chirurgeon 5 to find me a cure: For this curst corsive 6 eating my best rest, Memory, sad memory in you once blessed, But now most miserable with the weight                          15 Of that which only shows love's strange deceit, You are that cruel wound that inly wears My soul, my body wasting into tears. You keep mine eyes unclosed, my heart untied, From letting thought of my best days to slide.                        20 Froward 7 remembrance, what delight have you Over my miseries to take a view? Why do you tell me in this same-like place Of earth's best blessing I have seen the face? But masked from me, I only see the shade                              25 Of that which once my brightest sunshine made. You tell me, that I then was blessed in love, When equal passions did together move. O why is this alone to bring distress Without a salve, but torments in excess?                                  30 A cruel steward you are, to enroll My once-good days, of purpose to control With eyes of sorrow, yet leave me undone By too much confidence, my thread so spun: In conscience, move not such a spleen of scorn,                   35 Under whose swellings my despairs are born. Are you offended, choicest memory, That of your perfect I did glory? If I did so offend, yet pardon me,  Since 'twas to set forth true excellency.                                    40 Sufficiently I thus do punished stand, While all that curst is, you bring to my hand. Or, is it that I no way worthy was In so rich treasure my few days to pass? Alas, if so, and such a treasure given,                                        45 Must I for this to Hell-like pain be driven? Fully torment me now, and what is best Together take, and mem'ry with the rest, Leave not that to me, since but for my ill, Which punish may, and millions of hearts kill,                         50 Then may I, lonely, sit down with my loss Without vexation, for my losses' cross, Forgetting pleasures late embraced with love, Linked to a faith the world could never move, Chained with affection I hoped could not change,                55 Not thinking earth could yield a place to range. But staying, cruelly you set my bliss With deepest mourning in my sight, for miss, And thus must I imagine my curse more, When you I loved add to my mischief's store.                        60 If not, then memory continue still, And vex me with your perfectest known skill, While you, dear solitariness, accept Me to your charge, whose many passions, kept In your sweet dwellings, have this profit gained,                    65 That in more delicacy none was pained. Your rareness now receive my rarer woe With change, and love appoints my soul to know. 1.  See Arcadia, 'O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness ...' (OA 34). 2.  Wandering and thinking of  his unhappy love,  Dolorindus,  King of  Negro-      ponte, found himself on a mount in a wood, where the sight of lovers' names      carved in the trees reminded him of  past happiness, causing him to think of      these lines (i.110-11). 3.  curst]  Malignant. 4.  rest/restless]  This was a popular Elizabethan word-play in drama and verse. 5.  chirurgeon]  Surgeon. 6.  corsive]  Corrosive. 7.  Froward]  Perverse, malevolent. Source: Wroth, Lady Mary. Poems. R. E. Pritchard, Ed. Staffordshire, England: Keele University Press, 1996. 135-136.

to Lady Mary Wroth

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