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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Canzon 4. O then, Desire! Father of Jouissance!

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Zepheria

Canzon 4. O then, Desire! Father of Jouissance!

Anonymous

O THEN, Desire! Father of Jouissance!

The Life of Love! the Death of dastard Fear!

The Kindest Nurse to true persèverance!

Mine heart inherited, with thy love’s revere.

Beauty! peculiar Parent of Conceit!

Prosperous Midwife to a travelling Muse!

The Sweet of life! NEPENTHE’s eyes receipt!

Thee into me distilled, O Sweet, infuse!

Love then (the spirit of a generous sprite!

An infant ever drawing Nature’s breast!

The Sum of Life, that CHAOS did unnight!)

Dismissed mine heart from me, with thee to rest.

And now incites me cry, “Double! or quit!

Give back my heart, or take his body to it!”