Sonnet 153

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep.

A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,

And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep

In a cold valley-fountain of that ground,

Which borrow’d from this holy fire of love

A dateless lively heat, still to endure,

And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove

Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.

But at my mistress’ eye love’s brand new-fired,

The boy for trial needs would touch my breast.

I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,

And thither hied, a sad distemper’d guest,

But found no cure; the bath for my help lies

Where Cupid got new fire: my mistress’ eyes.

Cupid lay beside his arrow and drifted

Into sleep. And a girl, one of Diana’s,

Somewhat sly, with some mischief, lifted

The thing, and slipped it in one of the fountains,

Which was cold, or somewhat cool, before it found

Itself warmed by this arrow, whose marvelous heat

Made a hot bath of that fountain. That ground

Became a kind of mecca each heart sought

At the end of a pilgrimage toward pleasure

Amid pain. To it the sick from all over

The world came, to be healed in some measure.

But Cupid, when he got back his arrow, a different lover

Shot for me, and I found no cure for lovesickness.

For my bath is fire—the fiery eyes of my mistress.