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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


AMORETTI: 54 by EDMUND SPENSER

Poet Analysis

First Line: OF THIS WORLD'S THEATRE IN WHICH WE STAY
Last Line: SHE IS NO WOMAN, BUT A SENCELESSE STONE.
Subject(s): CONCEIT;

Of this worlds theatre in which we stay,
My love, lyke 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 laughes, and hardens evermore her hart.
What then can move her? If nor merth nor mone,
She is no woman, but a sencelesse stone.



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