If This Be Love
Henry Constable
[Verse 1]
To live in hell, and heaven to behold
To welcome life, and die a living death
To sweat with heat, and yet be freezing cold
To grasp at stars, and lie the earth beneath
To tread a maze that never shall have end
To burn in sighs, and starve in daily tears
To climb a hill, and never to descend
Giants to kill, and quake at childish fears
To pine for food, and watch the Hesperian tree
To thirst for drink, and nectar still to draw
To live accurs’d, whom men hold blest to be
And weep those wrongs which never creature saw
If this be love, if love in these be founded
My heart is love, for these in it are grounded