Poem by Edmund Spenser

Amoretti 54. Of this worlds theatre in which we stay

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 ioy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in myrth lyke to a comedy:
Soone after, when my ioy 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 hart.
  What then can move her? If nor merth, nor mone,
  She is no woman, but a sencelesse stone. 

1. Amoretti 67. Lyke as a huntsman, after weary chace
2. Amoretti 80. After so long a race as I have run
3. Amoretti 21. Was it the worke of Nature or of Art
4. Amoretti 87. Since I have lackt the comfort of that light
5. Amoretti 88. Lyke as the culver on the bared bough

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