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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  [Dedicatory Sonnets.] To the right virtuous and most beautiful Lady, the Lady Strange

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

[Dedicatory Sonnets.] To the right virtuous and most beautiful Lady, the Lady Strange

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

SWEET Lady! Might my humble Muse presume

Thy beauties’ rare perfection to set out

(Whom she, Pride of our English Court reputes)

Ambitious, she would assume

To blazon everywhere about

Thy beauty! whose dumb eloquence disputes

With fair Loves’ Queen; and her, by right confutes!

But since there is no doubt

But that thy beauty’s praise (which shall consume

Even Time itself) exceedeth

All British Ladies; deign my Muse’s suits!

Which, unacquainted of your beauty, craves

Acquaintance! and proceedeth

T’approach so boldly! and behaves

Herself so rudely! daunted at your sight;

As eyes in darkness, at a sudden light.