Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part II

XXXIX. Th’ immortal Parcæ, fatal Sisters three

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

TH’ IMMORTAL PARCÆ, fatal Sisters three,

Of mortal men, do sing the shunless fate:

What once Was, what Is now, and what Shall Be;

Their life, their death, their fortune, and their state.

Our Song let be like theirs! for Three they were;

And so our number is. Three are we here.

Sing LAURA then! Sing LOVE! and sing will I!

Of dreary fortune mine, sing let us all!

Let ’s sing in doleful tune most mournfully,

How ’Tis, how ’Twas, and hapless still Shall fall;

The Present, Past, and (which none can mend)

What Shall Be, world to come, withouten end.