Love.

Love is a kind of war: hence those who fear!
No cowards must his royal ensigns bear.

He that will not love must be
My scholar, and learn this of me:
There be in love as many fears
As the summer's corn has ears:
Sighs, and sobs, and sorrows more
Than the sand that makes the shore:
Freezing cold and fiery heats,
Fainting swoons and deadly sweats;
Now an ague, then a fever,
Both tormenting lovers ever.
Would'st thou know, besides all these,
How hard a woman 'tis to please,
How cross, how sullen, and how soon
She shifts and changes like the moon.
How false, how hollow she's in heart:
And how she is her own least part:
How high she's priz'd, and worth but small;
Little thou'lt love, or not at all.

That love 'twixt men does ever longest last
Where war and peace the dice by turns do cast.

Love's a thing, as I do hear,
Ever full of pensive fear;
Rather than to which I'll fall,
Trust me, I'll not like at all.
If to love I should intend,
Let my hair then stand an end:
And that terror likewise prove
Fatal to me in my love.
But if horror cannot slake
Flames which would an entrance make
Then the next thing I desire
Is, to love and live i' th' fire.

Love's of itself too sweet; the best of all
Is, when love's honey has a dash of gall.

Whene'er my heart love's warmth but entertains,
Oh frost! oh snow! oh hail! forbid the banes.
One drop now deads a spark, but if the same
Once gets a force, floods cannot quench the flame.
Rather than love, let me be ever lost,
Or let me 'gender with eternal frost.