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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  William Alexander, Earl of Stirling (1567?–1640)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

A Madrigal

William Alexander, Earl of Stirling (1567?–1640)

WHEN in her face mine eyes I fix,

A fearful boldness takes my mind,

Sweet honey Love with gall doth mix,

And is unkindly kind:

It seems to breed,

And is indeed

A special pleasure to be pined.

No danger then I dread:

For though I went a thousand times to Styx,

I know she can revive me with her eye

As many looks, as many lives to me:

And yet had I a thousand hearts,

As many looks, as many darts,

Might make them all to die.