| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Parthenophil and Parthenophe | | Sonnet LXVIII. Would GOD (when I beheld thy beauteous face | | Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609) |
| | | WOULD GOD (when I beheld thy beauteous face, | |
| And golden tresses rich with pearl and stone)! | |
| MEDUSA’s visage had appeared in place, | |
| With snaky locks, looking on me alone! | |
| Then had her dreadful charming looks me changed | 5 |
| Into a senseless stone. O, were I senseless! | |
| Then rage, through rash regard, had never ranged: | |
| Whereas to Love, I stood disarmed and fenceless. | |
| Yea, but that divers object of thy face | |
| In me contrarious operations wrought. | 10 |
| A moving spirit pricked with Beauty’s grace. | |
| No pity’s grace in thee! which I have sought: | |
| Which makes me deem, thou did’st MEDUSA see! | |
| And should thyself, a moving marble be. | | | | |
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