| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Fidessa | | Sonnet LVIII. O Beauty! Siren! kept with Circe’s rod! | | Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602) |
| | | O BEAUTY! Siren! kept with CIRCE’s rod! | |
| 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! | 5 |
| 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! | 10 |
| 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 FIDESSA love! | | | | |
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