| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Parthenophil and Parthenophe | | Sonnet XXVII. Why do I draw this cool relieving air | | Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609) |
| | | WHY do I draw this cool relieving air, | |
| And breathe it out in scalding sighs, as fast? | |
| Since all my hopes die buried in despair; | |
| In which hard soil, mine endless knots be cast. | |
| Where, when I come to walk, be sundry Mazes | 5 |
| With Beauty’s skilful finger linèd out; | |
| And knots, whose borders set with double daisies, | |
| Doubles my dazed Muse with endless doubt. | |
| How to find easy passage through the time, | |
| With which my Mazes are so long beset, | 10 |
| That I can never pass, but fall and climb | |
| According to my Passions (which forget | |
| The place, where they with Love’s Guide should have met): | |
| But when, faint-wearied, all (methinks) is past; | |
| The Maze returning, makes me turn as fast. | 15 | | | |
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