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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet LVI. Is Trust betrayed? Doth Kindness grow unkind?

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Fidessa

Sonnet LVI. Is Trust betrayed? Doth Kindness grow unkind?

Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602)

IS Trust betrayed? Doth Kindness grow unkind?

Can Beauty, both at once, give life and kill?

Shall Fortune alter the most constant mind?

Will Reason yield unto rebelling will?

Doth Fancy purchase praise, and Virtue, shame?

May shew of Goodness lurk in treachery?

Hath Truth unto herself procurèd blame?

Must sacred Muses suffer misery?

Are women woe to men, traps for their falls?

Differ their words, their deeds; their looks, their lives?

Have lovers ever been their tennis balls?

Be husbands fearful of the chastest wives?

All men do these affirm; and so must I!

Unless FIDESSA give to me the lie.