Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
LauraPart IIXXVI. Say, gentle friend, tell me in courtesy
Robert Tofte (15611620)“S
Before what was I? and what am I now?
A senseless Shadow, or a Body, I?”
“Neither of both. Mark, and I’ll tell thee how.
No Body now: for that, by proud disdain
Of scornful She, dislived was. Shadow none;
For that did underground go with the same,
Unwilling it should wander all alone.”
“What am I then?” “Even one that doth not know
What now he is: or what he was, can show.”