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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XLVII. Like Memnon’s rock, touched with the rising sun

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Licia

Sonnet XLVII. Like Memnon’s rock, touched with the rising sun

Giles Fletcher (1586?–1623)

LIKE MEMNON’s rock, touched with the rising sun,

Which yields a sound, and echoes forth a voice:

But when it ’s drowned in western seas is dumb;

And drowsy-like, leaves off to make a noise.

So I, my Love, enlightened with your shine,

A Poet’s skill within my soul I shroud;

Not rude, like that which finer wits decline;

But such as Muses, to the best allowed.

But when your figure and your shape is gone;

I speechless am, like as I was before:

Or if I write, my verse is filled with moan;

And blurred with tears, by falling in such store.

Then muse not, LICIA, if my Muse be slack:

For when I wrote, I did thy beauty lack.