The poem
Ask me why I send you here This sweet Infanta of the year? Ask me why I send to you This Primrose, thus bepearl'd with dew? I will whisper to your ears,-- The sweets of love are mixt with tears.
Ask me why this flower does show So yellow-green, and sickly too? Ask me why the stalk is weak And bending, yet it doth not break? I will answer,--these discover What fainting hopes are in a lover.