Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
FidessaSonnet XXXIV. Fie, Pleasure! fie! Thou cloy’st me with delight
Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602)F
Sweet thoughts, you kill me, if you lower stray!
O many be the joys of one short night!
Tush, fancies never can Desire allay!
Happy, unhappy thoughts! I think, and have not.
Pleasure, O pleasing plain! Shews nought avail me!
Mine own conceit doth glad me, more I crave not!
Yet wanting substance, woe doth still assail me.
“Babies do children please! and shadows, fools!”
“Shews have deceived the wisest, many a time!”
“Ever to want our wish, our courage cools!”
“The ladder broken, ’tis in vain to climb.”
But I must wish, and crave, and seek, and climb;
It’s hard, if I obtain not grace in time!