| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Fidessa | | Sonnet XXVIII. Well may my soul, immortal and divine | | Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602) |
| | | WELL may my soul, immortal and divine, | |
| That is imprisoned in a lump of clay, | |
| Breathe out laments until this body pine. | |
| That from her takes her pleasures all away. | |
| Pine then, thou loathèd prison of my life! | 5 |
| Untoward subject of the least aggrievance! | |
| O let me die! Mortality is rife! | |
| Death comes by wounds, by sickness, care, and chance. | |
| O earth, the time will come when I’ll resume thee, | |
| And in thy bosom make my resting-place; | 10 |
| Then do not unto hardest sentence doom me! | |
| Yield, yield betimes! I must, and will have grace! | |
| “Richly shalt thou be entombed! since for thy grave, | |
| FIDESSA, fair FIDESSA! thou shalt have!” | | | | |
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