Rosalind: Euphues' Golden Legacy
21
ROSADER'S SECOND SONNETTO
257Turn I my looks unto the skies,
Love with his arrows wounds mine eyes;
If so I gaze upon the ground,
Love then in every flower is found.
Search I the shade to fly my pain,
He meets me in the shade again;
Wend I to walk in secret grove,
Even there I meet with sacred Love.
If so I bain me in the spring,
Even on the brink I hear him sing:
If so I meditate alone,
He will be partner of my moan.
If so I mourn, he weeps with me,
And where I am there will he be.
Whenas I talk of Rosalind
The god from coyness waxeth kind,
And seems in selfsame flames to fry
Because he loves as well as I.
Sweet Rosalind, for pity rue,
Forwhy than Love I am more true.
He, if he speed, will quickly fly,
But in thy love I live and die.
258"How like you this sonnet?" quoth Rosader.
259"Marry," quoth Ganymede, "for the pen well, for the passion ill; for as I praise the one, I pity the other, in that thou shouldst hunt after a cloud, and love either without reward or regard."
260"'Tis not her frowardness," quoth Rosader, "but my hard fortunes, whose destinies have crossed me with her absence; for, did she feel my loves, she would not let me linger in these sorrows. Women, as they are fair, so they respect faith, and estimate more (if they be honorable) the will than the wealth, having loyalty the object whereat they aim their fancies. But leaving off these interparleys, you shall hear my last sonnetto, and then you have heard all my poetry." And with that he sighed out this: