Page:Elizabethan sonnet-cycles.djvu/37



evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still,

Wherewith, alas, I have been long possessed!

Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill,

Nor give me once but one poor minute's rest.

In me it speaks whether I sleep or wake;

And when by means to drive it out I try,

With greater torments then it me doth take,

And tortures me in most extremity.

Before my face it lays down my despairs,

And hastes me on unto a sudden death;

Now tempting me to drown myself in tears,

And then in sighing to give up my breath.

Thus am I still provoked to every evil,

By this good wicked spirit, sweet angel-devil.