Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Phillis

Sonnet XXXVII. These fierce incessant waves that stream along my face

Thomas Lodge (1558–1625)

THESE fierce incessant waves that stream along my face,

Which show the certain proof of my ne’er-ceasing pains,

Fair Phillis, are no tears that trickle from my brains;

For why? Such streams of ruth within me find no place.

These floods that wet my cheeks are gathered from thy grace

And thy perfections, and from hundred thousand flowers

Which from thy beauties spring; whereto I medley showers

Of rose and lilies too, the colours of thy face.

My love doth serve for fire, my heart the furnace is,

The aperries of my sighs augment the burning flame,

The limbec is mine eye that doth distil the same;

And by how much my fire is violent and sly,

By so much doth it cause the waters mount on high,

That shower from out mine eyes, for to assuage my miss.