Sonnet XX What It Is to Breathe

What it is to breathe and live without life;

How to be pale with anguish, red with fear;

T'have peace abroad, and nought within but strife;

Wish to be present, and yet shun t'appear;

How to be bold far off, and bashful near;

How to think much, and have no words to speak;

To crave redress, yet hold affliction dear;

To have affection strong, a body weak;

Never to find, and evermore to seek;

And seek that which I dare not hope to find;

T'affect this life, and yet this life disleek;

Grateful t'another, to myself unkind:

This cruel knowledge of these contraries,

Delia, my heart hath learn'd out of those eyes.