| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Sonnets and Poetical Translations | | III. The Fire to see my wrongs, for anger burneth | | Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) |
| | To the tune of Non credo gia che piu infelice amante |
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THE FIRE to see my wrongs, for anger burneth; | |
| The Air in rain, for my affliction weepeth; | |
| The Sea to ebb, for grief, his flowing turneth; | |
| The Earth with pity dull, the centre keepeth: | |
| Fame is with wonder blazed; | 5 |
| Time runs away for sorrow; | |
| Peace standeth still, amazed, | |
| To see my night of evils, which hath no morrow. | |
| Alas, a lovely She no pity taketh, | |
| To know my miseries; but, chaste and cruel, | 10 |
| My fall her glory maketh: | |
| Yet still her eyes give to my flames, their fuel. | |
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| Fire, burn me quite, till sense of burning leave me! | |
| Air, let me draw no more thy breath in anguish! | |
| Sea, drowned in thee, of tedious life bereave me! | 15 |
| Earth, take this earth, wherein my spirits languish! | |
| Fame, say I was not born! | |
| Time, haste my dying hour! | |
| Place, see my grave uptorn! | |
| Fire air, sea, earth, fame, time, place show your power! | 20 |
| Alas, from all their help, I am exiled: | |
| For hers am I, and death fears her displeasure. | |
| Fie, death! thou art beguiled! | |
| Though I be hers, she makes of me no treasure. | | | |
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