| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Parthenophil and Parthenophe | | Sonnet XL. But, ah, my plague, through time’s outrage, increased! | | Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609) |
| | | BUT, ah, my plague, through time’s outrage, increased! | |
| For when my sun his task had finished | |
| Within the Scorpion’s Mansion, he not ceased, | |
| Nor yet his heat’s extremes diminished, | |
| Till that dead-aiming Archer ’dressed his quiver, | 5 |
| In which he closely couchèd, at the last! | |
| That Archer, which does pierce both heart and liver, | |
| With hot gold-pointed shafts, which rankle fast! | |
| That proud, commanding, and swift-shooting Archer; | |
| Far-shooting PHŒBUS, which doth overshoot! | 10 |
| And, more than PHŒBUS, is an inward parcher! | |
| That with thy notes harmonious and songs soot | |
| Allured my sun, to fire mine heart’s soft root! | |
| And with thine ever-wounding golden arrow, | |
| First pricked my soul, then pierced my body’s marrow! | 15 | | | |
|
|
