| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Laura—Part II. | | XXXIII. If love, wherein I burn, were but a fire | | Robert Tofte (1561–1620) |
| | | IF love, wherein I burn, were but a fire; | |
| I quenched it had, with water of my plaints: | |
| If water, these my Plaints; I this desire | |
| Had dried through inward heat, my heart that taints. | |
| But LOVE, that in my griefs doth take delight, | 5 |
| Both fire and water turns, to work me spite. | |
| Fly then, this LOVE! since such is his great power | |
| As waves to fire, and fire to waves, he turns: | |
| And with an absent Beauty, every hour, | |
| My fainting heart with Fancy’s fuel burns; | 10 |
| And, ’gainst all sense, makes me, of CARe and IL | |
| More than of good and comfoRT, to have will. | | | | |
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