dots-menu
×

Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  IX. No sooner Laura mine appears to me

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part III

IX. No sooner Laura mine appears to me

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

NO sooner LAURA mine appears to me;

But that a dainty dye, or blushing red,

In both our faces showeth for to be.

But who, alas, doth mine so overspread?

O’er-fervent LOVE doth draw this shadow pure;

Like cunning’st Painter, long for to endure.

Who painteth hers? Disdain, with pencil hard;

Which turneth all my sweetness into sour.

So that all my designs are quickly marred;

Except LOVE bind Love, by his awful power,

In Faith’s firm bands. Too high th’ exchange will grow,

When love, for hate; and not for like, shall go.