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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XLIX. Cool! cool in waves, thy beams intolerable

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet XLIX. Cool! cool in waves, thy beams intolerable

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

COOL! cool in waves, thy beams intolerable,

O sun! No son, but most unkind stepfather!

By law, nor Nature, Sire; but rebel rather!

Fool! fool! these labours are inextricable;

A burden whose weight is importable;

A Siren which, within thy breast, doth bathe her;

A Fiend which doth, in Graces’ garments grath her;

A fortress, whose force is impregnable;

From my love’s ’lembic, still ’stilled tears. O tears!

Quench! quench mine heat! or, with your sovereignty,

Like NIOBE, convert mine heart to marble!

Or with fast-flowing pine, my body dry,

And rid me from Despair’s chilled fears! O fears,

Which on mine heben harp’s heartstrings do warble!