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Home  »  The English Poets  »  The Author’s Resolution in a Sonnet (from Fidelia)

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

George Wither (1588–1667)

The Author’s Resolution in a Sonnet (from Fidelia)

SHALL I, wasting in despaire

Dye, because a woman ’s fair?

Or make pale my cheeks with care

Cause anothers Rosie are?

Be she fairer than the Day

Or the flowry Meads in May,

If she thinke not well of me,

What care I how faire she be?

Shall my seely heart be pin’d

Cause I see a woman kind?

Or a well disposed Nature

Joyned with a lovely feature?

Be she Meeker, Kinder than

Turtle-dove or Pellican:

If she be not so to me,

What care I how kind she be?

Shall a woman’s Vertues move

Me to perish for her Love?

Or her wel deservings knowne

Make me quite forget mine own?

Be she with that Goodness blest

Which may merit name of best:

If she be not such to me,

What care I how Good she be?

Cause her Fortune seems too high

Shall I play the fool and die?

She that beares a Noble mind,

If not outward helpes she find,

Thinks what with them he wold do,

That without them dares her woe.

And unlesse that Minde I see

What care I how great she be?

Great, or Good, or Kind, or Faire

I will ne’re the more despaire:

If she love me (this beleeve)

I will Die ere she shall grieve.

If she slight me when I woe,

I can scorne and let her goe,

For if she be not for me

What care I for whom she be?