My Love Is Like To Ice

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

How  comes it then that this her cold so

Is  not dissolved through my so hot desire,

But  harder grows the more I her entreat?

Or  how comes it that my exceeding

Is  not allayed 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 congeal's 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.