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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet V. Why doth my mistress credit so her glass

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Sonnets after Astrophel, etc.

Sonnet V. Why doth my mistress credit so her glass

Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)

WHY doth my mistress credit so her glass

Gazing her beauty, deigned her by the skies?

And doth not rather look on him, alas!

Whose state best shows the force of murdering eyes.

The broken tops of lofty trees declare

The fury of a mercy-wanting storm:

And of what force your wounding graces are,

Upon myself, you best may find the form.

Then leave your glass, and gaze yourself on me!

That mirror shows the power of your face:

To admire your form too much may danger be,

NARCISSUS changed to flower in such a case.

I fear your change! Not flower nor hyacinth;

MEDUSA’s eye may turn your heart to flint.