- 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.
- 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,
- 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.