Sonnet 54 by Edmund Spenser (1542-99) Lyrics

Of this world’s theatre in which we stay,
My love like the spectator idly sits,
Beholding me, that all the pageants play,
Disguising diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in mirth like to a comedy:
Soon after, when my joy to sorrow flits,
I wail, and make my woes a tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart:
But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry
She laughs, and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan,
She is no woman, but a senseless stone.