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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Canzon 40. But if She shall attend what fortunes sequelled

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Zepheria

Canzon 40. But if She shall attend what fortunes sequelled

Anonymous

BUT if She shall attend what fortunes sequelled

The naufrage of my poor afflicted bark;

Then tell, but tell in words unsyllabled!

In sighs’ untunèd accents, move her to hark

Unto the tenour of thy sadder process!

Say then, “His tears (his heart’s intelligencers!)

Did intimate the griefs did him possess.

Crying, ZEPHERIA, unto thee! these messengers

I send! O these, my loves, my faith shall witness!

O these shall record loves and faith unfeignèd!

Look how my soul bathes in their innocency!

Whose dying confidence him designs unstained

Of guilty blush-note of impurity.

(O Death! Highway to Life, when Love is distained!)”

This said, if cruel She, no grace vouchsafe:

Dead, may her Gravestone be her Epitaph!

Troppo sperar inganna.

F I N I S.