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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XIII. With grievous thoughts and weighty care opprest

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Cœlia

Sonnet XIII. With grievous thoughts and weighty care opprest

William Percy (1575–1648)

WITH grievous thoughts and weighty care opprest,

One day, I went to VENUS’s Fanacle;

Of Cyprian dreams, which did me sore molest,

To be resolved by certain Oracle.

No sooner was I past the temple’s gate,

But from the shrine, where VENUS wont to stand,

I saw a Lady fair and delicate

Did beckon to me with her ivory hand.

Weening She was the Goddess of the Fane,

With cheerful looks I towards bent my pace:

Soon when I came, I found unto my bane,

A GORGON shadowed under VENUS’ face;

Whereat affright, when back I would be gone,

I stood transformed to a speechless stone.