Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Sonnets after Astrophel, etc.Sonnet XVI. Weigh but the cause! and give me leave to plain me
Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)[Not reprinted in Delia, Daniel’s authorised collection, 1592–4. ]
W
For all my hurt, that my heart’s Queen hath wrought it;
She whom I love so dear, the more to pain me,
Withholds my right, where I have dearly bought it.
Dearly I bought that was so highly rated,
Even with the price of blood and body’s wasting;
She would not yield that ought might be abated,
For all she saw my love was pure and lasting:
And yet now scorns performance of the passion;
And with her presence J
She tells me flat her beauty bears no action;
And so my plea and process she excludeth.
What wrong she doth, the world may well perceive it:
To accept my faith at first, and then to leave it.