| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Licia | | Sonnet XXIV. When as my Love lay sickly in her bed | | Giles Fletcher (1586?–1623) |
| | | WHEN as my Love lay sickly in her bed, | |
| Pale Death did post, in hope to have a prey; | |
| But she so spotless made him, that he fled: | |
| “Unmeet to die,” he cried; and could not stay, | |
| Back he retired, and thus the heavens he told: | 5 |
| “All things that are, are subject unto me; | |
| Both towns, and men, and what the world doth hold: | |
| But let fair LICIA still immortal be!” | |
| The heavens did grant. A goddess she was made, | |
| Immortal, fair, unfit to suffer change. | 10 |
| So now she lives, and never more shall fade. | |
| In earth, a goddess. What can be more strange? | |
| Then will I hope! A goddess, and so near; | |
| She cannot choose, my sighs and prayers but hear. | | | | |
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