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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XLVI. Ah, pierce-eye piercing eye, and blazing light!

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet XLVI. Ah, pierce-eye piercing eye, and blazing light!

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

AH, pierce-eye piercing eye, and blazing light!

Of thunder, thunder blazes burning up!

O sun, sun melting! blind, and dazing sight!

Ah, heart! down-driving heart, and turning up!

O matchless beauty, Beauty’s beauty staining!

Sweet damask rosebud! VENUS’ rose of roses!

Ah, front imperious, duty’s duty gaining!

Yet threatful clouds did still inclose and closes.

O lily leaves, when JUNO lily’s leaves

In wond’ring at her colours’ grain distained!

Voice, which rock’s voice and mountain’s hilly cleaves

In sunder, at my loves with pain complained!

Eye, lightning sun! Heart, beauty’s bane unfeigned!

O damask rose! proud forehead! lily! voice!

Ah, partial fortune! sore chance! silly choice!