dots-menu
×

Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  XXVIII. My Mistress writing, as her hand did shake

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part III

XXVIII. My Mistress writing, as her hand did shake

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

MY Mistress writing, as her hand did shake,

The pen did dash, which on her gown did spurt:

One drop, more higher than the rest did take;

And to presume to touch her breast it durst.

Upon her dainty bosom it did light:

Wherewith she blushed, in show like damask rose.

Presumptuous black! how dar’dst thou touch that white,

Wherein a World of gladsome pleasure grows?

Yet, spite of envy, happed it for the best:

To the white, more grace; more beauty, ’twas to th’ breast.