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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet IX. Blot not thy beauty (Fairest, yet unkind!)

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Diella

Sonnet IX. Blot not thy beauty (Fairest, yet unkind!)

Richard Linche (fl. 1596–1601)

BLOT not thy beauty (Fairest, yet unkind!)

with cruel usage of a yielding heart!

The stoutest Captain scorns such bloody mind:

then mingle mercy, where thou causedst smart!

Let him not die, in his May-springing days!

that living, vows to honour thee for ever.

Shine forth some pity from thy sun-like rays!

that hard-frozed hate may so dissolve and sever!

O were thou not much harder than a flint,

thou hadst ere this, been melted into love!

In firmest stone, small rain doth make a print:

but seas of tears cannot thy hardness move!

Then, wretched I, must die before my time!

Blasted and spoilèd in my budding prime.