Explore "Sonnets" by Helen Hay Whitney on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How shall I hold you? By a scimitar / Of flashing wit suspended o'er your head, / Oh, my Beloved? Or with lips rose-red / Lure you to Lethe? Shall I stand afar, / Pale and remote and distant as a star, / Challenging love? Or by a scarlet thread / Jealousy's wiles, beguile by scorn and dread? / Wounding the heart I love with hateful scar.
Nay, I can take no action, play no play; / All my wit falters when I hear you speak, / All my wise guile with which your wooing strove / Vanishes as the sun of yesterday.