Sonnet LV. Lo here, the impost of a faith unfeigning

Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)

[First printed, with verbal differences, in Sonnets after Sidney’s Astrophel (1591).]

LO here, the impost of a faith unfeigning,

That love hath paid, and her disdain extorted!

Behold the message of my just complaining,

That shews the world, how much my grief imported!

These tributary plaints, fraught with desire,

I send those Eyes, the Cabinets of Love!

The Paradise, whereto my hopes aspire,

From out this Hell, which mine afflictions prove.

Wherein I thus do live, cast down from mirth;

Pensive, alone, none but despair about me;

My joys abortive, perished at their birth;

My cares long lived, and will not die without me.

This is my state! and D E L I A ’s heart is such!

I say no more. I fear, I said too much.

F I N I S.