Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet LXXV. Love is a name too lovely for the god!

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

LOVE is a name too lovely for the god!

He naked goes, red coloured in his skin,

And bare, all as a boy fit for a rod.

Hence into Afric! There, seek out thy kin

Amongst the Moors! and swarthy men of Ind!

Me, thou, of joys and sweet content hast hindered!

Hast thou consumed me! and art of my kind?

Hast thou enraged me! yet art of my kindred?

Nay, Ismarus, or Rhodope thy father!

Or craggy Caucasus, thy crabbed sire!

Vesuvius, else? or was it Etna rather?

For thou, how many dost consume with fire!

Fierce tigers, wolves, and panthers gave thee suck!

For lovely VENUS had not such evil luck!