Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Fidessa

Sonnet XXXVIII. Was never eye did see my Mistress’s face

Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602)

WAS never eye did see my Mistress’s face,

Was never ear did hear FIDESSA’s tongue,

Was never mind that once did mind her grace,

That ever thought the travail to be long!

“When her I see, no creature I behold.”

So plainly say, these Advocates of Love,

That now do fear, and now to speak are bold;

Trembling apace, when they resolve to prove.

These strange effects do show a hidden power,

A majesty, all base attempts reproving;

That glads or daunts as she doth laugh or lower;

Surely some goddess harbours in their moving!

Who thus my Muse from base attempts hath raised,

Whom thus my Muse beyond compare hath praised.