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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Madrigal 6. O why loved I? For love, to purchase hatred!

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Madrigal 6. O why loved I? For love, to purchase hatred!

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

O WHY loved I? For love, to purchase hatred!

Or wherefore hates She? but that I should love her!

Why were these cheeks with tears bewatered?

Because my tears might quench those sparks

Which with heat’s pity move her!

Her cloudy frown, with mist her beauty darks,

To make it seem obscurèd at my smiles.

In dark, true diamonds will shine!

Her hate, my love; her heat, my tears beguiles!

Fear makes her doubtful; yet her heart is mine!