William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. Did Not the Heavenly Rhetoric of Thine Eye By William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
DID 1 not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, ’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, Persuade my heart to this false perjury? Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment. A woman I forswore; but I will prove, 5 Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee: My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love; Thy grace being gain’d cures all disgrace in me. Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is: Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine, 10 Exhal’st this vapour-vow; in thee it is: If broken then, it is no fault of mine; If by me broke, what fool is not so wise To lose an oath to win a paradise?
Note 1. Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1592, act iv. sc. 3 ; it was included as the third poem in The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599. (See note to No. 41 .) [back ]
