Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet XXX. So this continual fountain of my Tears

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

SO this continual fountain of my Tears,

From that hard rock of her sweet beauty trickling;

So shall my Tongue on her love’s music tickling;

So shall my Passions, fed with hopes and fears;

So shall mine Heart, which wearing, never wears,

But soft, is hardened with her beauty’s prickling;

On which; Despair, my vulture seized, stands pickling

Yet never thence his maw full gorgèd bears;

Right so, my Tears, Tongue, Passions, Heart, Despair;

With floods, complaints, sighs, throbs, and endless sorrow;

In seas, in volumes, winds, earthquakes, and hell;

Shall float, chant, breathe, break, and dark mansion borrow!

And, in them, I be blessed for my Fair;

That in these torments, for her sake I dwell.