Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
FidessaSonnet LVIII. O Beauty! Siren! kept with Circe’s rod!
Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602)O B
The faintest good in seem, but foulest ill!
The sweetest plague ordained for man by GOD!
The pleasing subject of presumptuous will!
Th’alluring object of unstayed eyes!
Friended of all, but unto all a foe!
The dearest thing that any creature buys!
And vainest too (It serves but for a shoe)!
In seem, a heaven; and yet from bliss exiling!
Paying, for truest service, nought but pain!
Young men’s undoing! Young and old beguiling!
Man’s greatest loss, though thought his greatest gain!
True, that all this, with pain enough I prove;
And yet most true, I will F