| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet XXXII. The painful smith, with force of fervent heat | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | THE PAINFUL smith, with force of fervent heat, | |
| The hardest iron soon doth mollify; | |
| That with his heavy sledge he can it beat, | |
| And fashion to what he it list apply. | |
| Yet cannot all these flames, in which I fry, | 5 |
| Her heart more hard than iron soft a whit; | |
| Ne all the plaints and prayers, with which I | |
| Do beat on th’ anvil of her stubborn wit | |
| But still, the more she fervent sees my fit, | |
| The more she freezeth in her wilful pride; | 10 |
| And harder grows, the harder she is smit | |
| With all the plaints which to her be applied. | |
| What then remains but I to ashes burn, | |
| And she to stones at length all frozen turn! | | | | |
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