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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Introductory: Goe Idle lines vnpolisht rude and base

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

The Tears of Fancie

Introductory: Goe Idle lines vnpolisht rude and base

Thomas Watson (1555–1592)

THE
TEARS OF
Fancie.
OR,
Loue Disdained.

Ætna grauius Amor.

Printed at London for William Barley, dwelling
In Gratious streete ouer against Leaden
Hall. 1593.

[Reprinted from the only known copy in the collection of Mrs. Christie-Miller at Britwell.]

*****

GOE Idle lines vnpolisht rude and base,

Vnworthy words to blason beauties glory:

(Beauty that hath my restless hart in chase,

Beauty the subiect of my ruefull story.)

I warne thee shunne the bower of her abiding,

Be not so bold ne hardy as to view her:

Least shee inraged with thee fall a chiding,

And so her anger proue thy woes renewer.

Yet if shee daigne to rew thy dreadfull smart,

And reading laugh, and laughing so mislike thee:

Bid her desist, and looke within my hart,

Where shee may see how ruthles shee did strike mee

If shee be pleasde though shee reward thee not,

What others say of me regard it not.