Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part I

XXXII. Thou, merry, laugh’st, and pleasantly dost smile

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

THOU, merry, laugh’st, and pleasantly dost smile:

I woeful weep, and mestful sorrow still;

Lest this thy mirth increasing, me beguile,

And weave a web for me of greater ill.

Too well perceive I this thy deep disdain,

By this thy feignèd looks and cloakèd glee.

Thou of disaster mine art glad and fain;

And fain my death, as basilisk, would’st see;

Since that of war and ’bate this laughter is,

And not of gentle peace and calmy bliss.