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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet I. In prime of youthly yeares as then not wounded

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

The Tears of Fancie

Sonnet I. In prime of youthly yeares as then not wounded

Thomas Watson (1555–1592)

IN prime of youthly yeares as then not wounded,

With Loues impoisoned dart or bitter gall:

Nor minde nor thought son fickle Fancie grounded

But carelesse hunting after pleasures ball.

I tooke delight to laugh at Louers follie,

Accounting beautie but a fading blossome:

What I esteemed prophane, they deemed holie,

Ioying the thraldome which I counted loathsome.

Their plaints were such as no thing might relieue them,

Their harts did wellnie breake loues paine induring:

Yet still I smild to see how loue did grieue them,

Vnwise they were their sorrowes selfe procuring.

Thus whilst they honoured Cupid for a God,

I held him as a boy not past the rod.