HELENA

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky

Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull

Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.

What power is it which mounts my love so high,

That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?

The mightiest space in fortune nature brings

To join like likes and kiss like native things.

Impossible be strange attempts to those

That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose

What hath been cannot be: who ever strove

So show her merit, that did miss her love?

The king's disease--my project may deceive me,

But my intents are fix'd and will not leave me.