Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
DiellaSonnet XXXVII. Did I not love her as a lover ought
Richard Linche (fl. 1596–1601)D
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,
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
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.