Note 1. Each of the poems of Watson’s Passionate Century is preceded by a brief explanation. This poem is included among the last twenty (so-styled) sonnets, under the section titled My Love Is Past, and is prefaced as follows: “The author faineth here that Love, essaying with his brand to fire the heart of some lady, on whom it would not work, immediately, to try whether the old virtue of it were extinguished or no, applied it unto his own breast, and thereby foolishly consumed himself. This invention hath some relation unto the Epitaph of Love, written by M. Girolimo Parabosco:
“‘In cenere giace qui sepolto Amore,
Colpa di quella, che morir mi face, etc.’”
Watson’s pains lest the reader may believe his passion not assumed, together with his pedantic gloss, has gone far toward destroying whatever of real merit the verses possess. [back]
