| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Laura—Part III. | | III. The flaming torch, a shadow of the light | | Robert Tofte (1561–1620) |
| | | THE FLAMING torch, a shadow of the light, | |
| Put out by hasty hand, doth colour change; | |
| And black becomes, which seemed before most bright: | |
| Nor so to show is any marvel strange. | |
| So was I long a lively fire of Love; | 5 |
| The heat whereof my body oft did prove: | |
| But I, at last, by one who moaned my woe, | |
| Extinguished was, by pitiful Disdain. | |
| Then if my colour black in face do show, | |
| You need not much to wonder at the same; | 10 |
| Since ’tis a sign, by part to know the whole, | |
| That Love made me a fire, Disdain a coal. | | | | |
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