| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Toss Not My Soul, O Love | | Anonymous |
| | | TOSS 1 not my soul, O Love, ’twixt hope and fear! | |
| Show me some ground where I may firmly stand, | |
| Or surely fall! I care not which appear, | |
| So one will close me in a certain band. | |
| When once of ill the uttermost is known, | 5 |
| The strength of sorrow quite is overthrown. | |
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| Take me, Assurance, to thy blissful hold! | |
| Or thou Despair, unto thy darkest cell! | |
| Each hath full rest: the one, in joys enroll’d; | |
| Th’ other, in that he fears no more, is well. | 10 |
| When once the uttermost of ill is known, | |
| The strength of sorrow quite is overthrown. | |
| | | Note 1. From John Dowland’s Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1600. [back] | | |
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