| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Parthenophil and Parthenophe | | Sonnet XXXIX. Then (from her Venus, and bright Mercury | | Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609) |
| | | THEN (from her Venus, and bright Mercury, | |
| My heaven’s clear planets), did She shoot such blazes | |
| As did infuse, with heat’s extremity, | |
| Mine heart, which on despair’s bare pasture grazes. | |
| Then, like the Scorpion, did She deadly sting me; | 5 |
| And with a pleasing poison pierced me! | |
| Which, to these utmost sobs of death, did bring me, | |
| And, through my soul’s faint sinews, searched me. | |
| Yet might She cure me with the Scorpion’s Oil! | |
| If that She were so kind as beautiful: | 10 |
| But, in my bale, She joys to see me boil; | |
| Though be my Passions dear and dutiful, | |
| Yet She, remorseless and unmerciful. | |
| But when my thought of her is such a thing | |
| To strike me dead; judge, if herself can sting! | 15 | | | |
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