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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  XIII. When first the cruel Fair deigned graciously

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part II

XIII. When first the cruel Fair deigned graciously

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

WHEN first the cruel Fair deigned graciously

To look on me with kind and courteous view;

And cast on me a lovely glancing eye:

She knew not that I was her servant true.

But She no sooner ’ware was of the same;

But that She turned her back with great disdain.

So as the wound I then close bare in breast;

I now, through grief, show outward in my face:

But if that She, by whom I woundèd rest,

Lives in compassion cold towards me, sans grace:

Hard hearted is She, cruel was She to her friend;

And wicked shall be, world withouten end.