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.