Sonnet XL. Injurious Fates! to rob me of my bliss

Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602)

INJURIOUS Fates! to rob me of my bliss,

And dispossess my heart of all his hope:

You ought, with just revenge, to punish miss,

For unto you the hearts of men are ope.

Injurious Fates! that hardened have her heart,

Yet make her face to send out pleasing smiles:

And both are done, but to increase my smart,

And entertain my love with falsèd wiles.

Yet being, when She smiles, surprised with joy,

I fain would languish in so sweet a pain!

Beseeching death, my body to destroy;

Lest, on the sudden, She should frown again.

When men do wish for death, Fates have no force:

But they, when men would live, have no remorse.