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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XI. Why didst thou, then, in such disfigured guise

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet XI. Why didst thou, then, in such disfigured guise

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

WHY didst thou, then, in such disfigured guise,

Figure the portrait of mine overthrow?

Why, man-like, didst thou mean to tyrannize?

No man, but woman would have sinnèd so!

Why, then, inhuman, and my secret foe!

Didst thou betray me? yet would be a woman!

From my chief wealth, outweaving me this woe,

Leaving thy love in pawn, till time did come on

When that thy trustless bonds were to be tried!

And when, through thy default, I thee did summon

Into the Court of Steadfast Love, then cried,

“As it was promised, here stands his Heart’s bail!

And if in bonds to thee, my love be tied;

Then by those bonds, take Forfeit of the Sale!”