Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Cœlia

Sonnet VIII. Strike up, my Lute! and ease my heavy cares

William Percy (1575–1648)

STRIKE up, my Lute! and ease my heavy cares,

The only solace to my Passions:

Impart unto the airs, thy pleasing airs!

More sweet than heavenly consolations.

Rehearse the songs of forlorn amor’us

Driven to despair by dames tyrannical!

Of ALPHEUS’ loss, of woes of TROILUS,

Of ROWLAND’s rage, of IPHIS’ funeral!

Ay me! what warbles yields mine instrument!

The Basses shriek as though they were amiss!

The Means, no means, too sad the merriment!

No, no! the music good, but thus it is

I loath both Means, merriment, Diapasons;

So She and I may be but Unisons.