The Sonnets

The forward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my loveʼs breath? The purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells

In my loveʼs veins thou hast too grossly dyʼd.

The lily I condemned for thy hand,

And buds of marjoram had stolʼn thy hair;

The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,

One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stolʼn of both,

And to his robbery had annexʼd thy breath;

But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth

A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,

But sweet, or colour it had stolʼn from thee.