| THE FORWARD violet thus did I chide | |
| Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, | |
| If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride | |
| Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells | |
| In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dy’d. | 5 |
| The lily I condemned for thy hand, | |
| And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair; | |
| The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, | |
| One blushing shame, another white despair; | |
| A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both, | 10 |
| And to his robbery had annex’d thy breath; | |
| But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth | |
| A vengeful canker eat him up to death. | |
| More flowers I noted, yet I none could see | |
| But sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee. | 15 |