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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  XXXI. Unto an Image may I right compare

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part II

XXXI. Unto an Image may I right compare

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

UNTO an Image may I right compare

My Mistress, since so cruel She ’s to me:

Which standeth for a sign or shadow fair;

To which the simple ignorant bow with knee:

And though with eyes, mouth, ears, and feet it show;

Yet doth it neither see, talk, hear, or go.

So plays my Choice, when I appear in sight:

Nor see, nor speak, nor hear, nor stay She will.

So as an Idol, She resembleth right;

Blind, mute, deaf, moveless, senseless standing still.

Then am not I worse than a lifeless block;

To worship such a painted coloured stock.

Fiorenza.