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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XLV. When neither sighs nor sorrowes were of force

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

The Tears of Fancie

Sonnet XLV. When neither sighs nor sorrowes were of force

Thomas Watson (1555–1592)

WHEN neither sighs nor sorrowes were of force

I let my Mistres see my naked brest:

Where view of wounded hart might worke remorce,

And moue her mind to pittie my vnrest.

VVith stedfast eie shee gazed on my hart,

Wherein shee saw the picture of her beautie:

Which hauing seene as one agast shee start,

Accusing all my thoughts with breach of duetie.

As if my hart had robd her of her faire,

No, no, her faire bereaud my hart of ioy:

And fates disdaine hath kild me with dispaire,

Dispaire the fountaine of my sad annoy.

And more, alas, a cruell one I serued,

Lest loued of her whose loue I most deserued.