SONNET CXL

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
 My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
 Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
 The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
 If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
 Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
 As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
 No news but health from their physicians know;
 For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
 And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
 Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
 Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,
     That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
     Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.