| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Sonnets after Astrophel, etc. | | Sonnet XVI. Weigh but the cause! and give me leave to plain me | | Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) |
| | [Not reprinted in Delia, Daniel’s authorised collection, 1592–4.] |
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WEIGH but the cause! and give me leave to plain me, | |
| For all my hurt, that my heart’s Queen hath wrought it; | |
| She whom I love so dear, the more to pain me, | |
| Withholds my right, where I have dearly bought it. | |
| Dearly I bought that was so highly rated, | 5 |
| Even with the price of blood and body’s wasting; | |
| She would not yield that ought might be abated, | |
| For all she saw my love was pure and lasting: | |
| And yet now scorns performance of the passion; | |
| And with her presence JUSTICE overruleth. | 10 |
| She tells me flat her beauty bears no action; | |
| And so my plea and process she excludeth. | |
| What wrong she doth, the world may well perceive it: | |
| To accept my faith at first, and then to leave it. | | | |
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