| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Parthenophil and Parthenophe | | Sonnet LI. Lame Consonants, of member-Vowels robbed! | | Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609) |
| | | LAME Consonants, of member-Vowels robbed! | |
| What perfect sounding words can you compose, | |
| Wherein you might my sorrow’s flame disclose? | |
| Can you frame maimed words, as you had throbbed? | |
| Can you with sighs, make signs of Passions sobbed? | 5 |
| Or can your Characters, make Sorrow’s shows? | |
| Can Liquids make them? I, with tears make those! | |
| But for my tears, with taunts and frumps are bobbed. | |
| Could Mutes procure good words, mute would I be! | |
| But then who should my Sorrow’s Image paint? | 10 |
| No Consonants, or Mutes, or Liquids will | |
| Set out my sorrows; though, with grief I faint. | |
| If with no letter, but one Vowel should be; | |
| An A, with H, my Sonnet would fulfil. | | | | |
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