Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Licia

Sonnet XXXVII. Sweet, I protest, and seal it with an oath

Giles Fletcher (1586?–1623)

SWEET, I protest, and seal it with an oath,

I never saw that so my thoughts did please:

And yet content, displeased I see them wroth

To love so much, and cannot have their ease.

I told my thoughts, “My Sovereign made a pause:

Disposed to grant, but willing to delay.”

They then repined, for that they knew no cause;

And swore they wished She flatly would say “Nay.”

Thus hath my love, my thoughts with treason filled;

And ’gainst my Sovereign taught them to repine:

So thus my treason, all my thoughts hath killed;

And made fair LICIA say, She is not mine.

But thoughts too rash, my heart doth now repent:

And, as you please, they swear they are content.