| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Diella | | Sonnet XXIII. My life’s preserver! hope of my heart’s bliss! | | Richard Linche (fl. 1596–1601) |
| | | MY life’s preserver! hope of my heart’s bliss! | |
| when shall I know the doom of life or death? | |
| Hell’s fearful torments easier are, than this | |
| soul’s agony, wherein I now do breathe. | |
| If thou wouldst look! this my tear-stainèd face, | 5 |
| dreary and wan, far differing from what it was, | |
| Would well reveal my most tormentful case, | |
| and shew thy Fair, my Grief as in a glass. | |
| Look, as a deer late wounded very sore, | |
| among the herd, full heavily doth feed; | 10 |
| So do I live! expecting evermore, | |
| when as my wounded heart should cease to bleed. | |
| How patient then, would I endure the smart | |
| Of pitchy-countenanced Death’s dead-doing dart! | | | | |
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