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Classic poem

Sonnet 54

by Edmund Spenser

Of this worlds theatre in which we stay,

My love like the spectator ydly sits

Beholding me that all the pageants play,

Disguysing diversly my troubled wits.

Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,

And mask in myrth lyke to a comedy:

Soone after when my joy to sorrow flits,

I waile and make my woes a tragedy.

Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,

Delights not in my merth nor rues my smart:

But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry

She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.

What then can move her? if nor merth nor mone,

She is no woman, but a senceless stone.

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Public domain/Source

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