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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  XII. The beauty, that in Paradise doth grow

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part I

XII. The beauty, that in Paradise doth grow

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

THE BEAUTY, that in Paradise doth grow,

Lively appears in my sweet goddess’s Face;

From whence, as from a crystal river, flow

Favour divine and comeliness of grace.

But in her dainty, yet too cruel, Breast,

More cruelty and hardness doth abound;

Than doth in painful Purgatory rest.

So that, at once, She’s fair, and cruel, found:

When in her Face and Breast, ah, grief to tell!

Bright Heaven she shows; and crafty, hides dark Hell.