My love is like to ice, and I to fire ...

My love is like to ice, and I to fire;

How comes it then that this her cold so great

Is not dissolved through my so-hot desire,

But harder grows the more I her intreat?

Or how comes it that my exceeding heat

Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold;

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,

And feel my flames augmented manifold?

What more miraculous thing may be told

That fire which all things melts, should harden ice:

And ice which is congealed with senseless cold,

Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

Such is the power of love in gentle mind,

That it can alter all the course of kind.

 

Edmund Spenser, (1552-1599), Amoretti - Sonnet XXX

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