| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Parthenophil and Parthenophe | | Sonnet XXXVIII. When thine heart-piercing answers could not hinder | | Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609) |
| | | WHEN thine heart-piercing answers could not hinder | |
| Mine heart’s hot hammer on thy steel to batter; | |
| Nor could excuses cold, quench out that cinder | |
| Which in me kindled was: She weighed the matter, | |
| And turning my sun’s chariot, him did place | 5 |
| In Libra’s equal Mansion, taking pause, | |
| And casting, with deep judgement, to disgrace | |
| My love, with cruel dealing in the cause. | |
| She, busily, with earnest care devised | |
| How She might make her beauty tyrannous, | 10 |
| And I, for ever, to her yoke surprised: | |
| The means found out, with cunning perilous, | |
| She turned the wheels, with force impetuous, | |
| And armed with woman-like contagion | |
| My sun She lodged in the Scorpion. | 15 | | | |
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