| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet LIV. Of this world’s theatre in which we stay | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | OF this world’s theatre in which we stay, | |
| My love like the spectator, idly sits; | |
| Beholding me, that all the pageants play, | |
| Disguising diversely my troubled wits. | |
| Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits, | 5 |
| And mask in mirth like to a comedy: | |
| Soon after, when my joy to sorrow flits, | |
| I wail, and make my woes a tragedy. | |
| Yet she, beholding me with constant eye, | |
| Delights not in my mirth, nor rues my smart: | 10 |
| But, when I laugh, she mocks; and, when I cry, | |
| She laughs, and hardens evermore her heart. | |
| What then can move her? if nor mirth nor moan, | |
| She is no woman, but a senseless stone. | | | | |
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