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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XIII. What time fair Titan in the zenith sat

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Chloris

Sonnet XIII. What time fair Titan in the zenith sat

William Smith (fl. 1596)

A Dream

WHAT time fair TITAN in the zenith sat

And equally the fixèd poles did heat;

When to my flock my daily woes I chat,

And underneath a broad beech took my seat:

The dreaming god, which MORPHEUS Poets call,

Augmenting fuel to my Etna’s fire,

With sleep possessing my weak senses all,

In apparitions makes my hopes aspire.

Methought I saw the Nymph I would embrace,

With arms abroad, coming to me for help:

A lust-led Satyr having her in chase;

Which after her, about the fields, did yelp.

I seeing my Love in perplexed plight,

A sturdy bat from off an oak I reft;

And with the ravisher continued fight

Till breathless I upon the earth him left.

Then when my coy Nymph saw her breathless foe,

With kisses kind she gratifies my pain;

Protesting never rigour more to show.

Happy was I this good hap to obtain.

But drowsy slumbers, flying to their cell,

My sudden joy convertèd was to bale.

My wontèd sorrows still with me do dwell.

I lookèd round about on hill and dale:

But I could neither my fair CHLORIS view;

Not yet the Satyr, which erst while I slew.