poem 19
from... A crown of Sonnets dedicated to love.
In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn?
Ways are on all sides, while the way I miss.
If to the right hand, there, in love I burn:
Let me go forward, therein danger is;
If to the left, suspicion hinders bliss,
Let me turn back, shame cries I ought return
Nor faint though crosses with my fortune kiss;
Stand still is harder, although sure to mourn;
Thus let me take the right or left hand way;
Go forward, or stand still, or back retire;
I must these doubts endure without allay
Or help but travail find for my best hire.
Yet that which most my troubled sense does move
Is to leave all, and take the thread of love.
(This is the first of 14 sonnets by Lady Mary Wroth (1586? - 1651?). The last line of each formed the first line of the next sonnet; so the final sonnet ends with the first line above. The labyrinth referred to is the one in which Theseus was caught, and escaped from by following the thread given him by Ariadne, and so did not meet the dreaded Minotaur. Lady Wroth was the daughter of Robert Sidney, brother of the more famous Philip Sidney, and so grew up in a highly intellectual family. She wrote a romance, Urania, which caused a scandal due to its supposed topical allusions.)