| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Diella | | Sonnet XXXVII. Did I not love her as a lover ought | | Richard Linche (fl. 1596–1601) |
| | | DID I not love her as a lover ought, | |
| with purest zeal and faithfulness of heart; | |
| Then She had cause to set my love at naught, | |
| and I had well deserved to feel this smart! | |
| But holding her so dearly as I do, | 5 |
| as a rare jewel of most high esteem; | |
| She most unkindly wounds and kills me, so, | |
| my ne’er-stained troth most causeless to misdeem! | |
| Never did one account of woman more | |
| than I of her! nor ever woman yet | 10 |
| Respected less, or held in lesser store | |
| her lover’s vows, than She by mine doth set! | |
| What resteth then? but I despair and die! | |
| That so my death may glut her ruthless eye. | | | | |
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