Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
Than our earth's wonder, more than earth divine.
Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak.
Lay open to my earthy gross conceit,
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Smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
Against my soul's pure truth why labour you
To make it wander in an unknown field?
Are you a god? would you create me new?
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Transform me, then, and to your power I'll yield.
But if that I am I, then well I know
Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe.
Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
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O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note
To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.
Sing, Siren, for thyself, and I will dote.
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I'll take them and there lie,
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And in that glorious supposition think
He gains by death that hath such means to die.
Let Love, being light, be drownèd if she sink.
wise and graceful as the earth is wonderful and divine. Teach me how I should think and speak. My understanding is clumsy and human, riddled with errors—it is feeble, shallow, and weak. Reveal to me the hidden meaning of your words. Why would you have me betray the truth of my emotions and make my love wander in some other direction? Are you a god? Are you trying to remake me? Go ahead, I'll yield to your power. But if I am myself, then I know for sure that your weeping sister is not my wife. I don't owe her any duty—it's you that I submit to. Oh, sweet mermaid, don't command me to drown myself in the flood of your sister's tears. Siren
, use your song to make me love you instead, and I will obey. Spread your golden hair over the silver waves, and I will lie down in it like a bed. If a man could die
in that glorious fantasy, then I think he would benefit by dying. Love is light and therefore floats—if my love is false, let me sink!
