Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part III

XXXII. White art thou, like the mountain-snow to see

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

WHITE art thou, like the mountain-snow to see;

I Black, like to the burnèd coal do show:

Then give some of thy purest white to me!

And I’ll some of my black on thee bestow:

So will we these two contraries unite

Together; which so joined, will show more fair.

Let ’s both then make this change, for our delight;

Unless to kill me, thou do little care!

But why of White or Black, talk I to thee?

My blood not black ’tis; which thou fain wouldst see.