is portrayed in the _Amoretti or Sonnets_ and the
_Epithalamium_. It may be gathered from these
biographically and otherwise interesting pieces, that
it was at the close of the year 1592 that the poet was
made a captive of that beauty he so fondly describes.
The first three sonnets would seem to have been written
in that year. The fourth celebrates the beginning of
the year 1593--the beginning according to our modern
way of reckoning. All through that year 1593 the lover
sighed, beseeched, adored, despaired, prayed again.
Fifty-eight sonnets chronicle the various hopes and
fears of that year. The object of his passion remained
as steel and flint, while he wept and wailed and
pleaded. His life was a long torment.

In vaine I seeke and sew to her for grace
And doe myne humbled hart before her poure;
The whiles her foot she in my necke doth place
And tread my life downe in the lowly floure.

In Lent she is his 'sweet saynt,' and he vows to find
some fit service for her.

Her temple fayre is built within my mind
In which her glorious image placed is.

But all his devotion profited nothing, and he thinks it
were better 'at once to die.' He marvels at her
cruelty. He cannot address himself to further
composition of his great poem. The accomplishment of