TESTO DEL LIED

"The love which me"
di Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

The love which me so cruelly tormenteth,
So pleasing is in my extreamest paine,
That all the more my sorrow it augmenteth,
The more I love and doe embrace my bane.

Ne do I wish (for wishing were but vaine)
To be acquit fro my continuall smart:
But joy, her thrall for ever to remaine,
And yeild for pledge my poore captived hart,
The which that it fom her may never start,
Let her, if please her bind with Adamant chains,
And from all wandring loves which may pervart,
In safe assurance strongly it restraine.

Onely let her abstaine from crueltie,
And doe me not before my time to die.