Sonet 21

A poem by Michael Drayton

You cannot loue my pretty hart, and why?
There was a time, you told me that you would,
But now againe you will the same deny,
If it might please you, would to God you could;
What will you hate? nay, that you will not neither,
Nor loue, nor hate, how then? what will you do,
What will you keepe a meane then betwixt eyther?
Or will you loue me, and yet hate me to?
Yet serues not this, what next, what other shift?
You will, and will not, what a coyle is heere,
I see your craft, now I perceaue your drift,
And all this while, I was mistaken there.
Your loue and hate is this, I now doe proue you,
You loue in hate, by hate to make me loue you.