If This Be Love

by Pierre de Ronsard

If this be love, my Lady, day and night
To think, muse, dream, of naught but how to please,
To do naught else but seek to serve your ease,
And worship you, who work me most despite;

If this be love, in long and lonely flight
To follow ever joy that ever flees
And find a desert, watered with pain's lees,
A place of silence and of lost delight;

If this be love, to live far more in you
Than in myself; and when I seek to woo,
Abashed, to find no word to urge my suit,
Torn with unequal strife at every breath,
In feeling strong, in speech irresolute:

If these be love, then madly love I you
Love you and know the fated end is death.

My heart speaks plainly,
Though my tongue is mute.