| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Laura—Part II. | | XXVI. “Say, gentle friend, tell me in courtesy | | Robert Tofte (1561–1620) |
| | | “SAY, gentle friend, tell me in courtesy, | |
| Before what was I? and what am I now? | |
| A senseless Shadow, or a Body, I?” | |
| “Neither of both. Mark, and I’ll tell thee how. | |
| No Body now: for that, by proud disdain | 5 |
| Of scornful She, dislived was. Shadow none; | |
| For that did underground go with the same, | |
| Unwilling it should wander all alone.” | |
| “What am I then?” “Even one that doth not know | |
| What now he is: or what he was, can show.” | 10 | | | |
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