| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Diella | | Sonnet XIX. When Night returns back to his ugly mansion | | Richard Linche (fl. 1596–1601) |
| | | WHEN Night returns back to his ugly mansion, | |
| and clear-faced Morning makes her bright uprise; | |
| In sorrow’s depth, I murmur out his cantion | |
| (salt tears distilling from my dewy eyes), | |
| “O thou deceitful SOMNUS, god of dreams! | 5 |
| cease to afflict my over-painèd sprite | |
| With vain illusions, and idle themes! | |
| thy spells are false! thou canst not charm aright! | |
| For when, in bed, I think t’embrace my Love | |
| (enchanted by thy magic so to think), | 10 |
| Vain are my thoughts! ’tis empty air, I prove! | |
| that still I wail, till watching make me wink: | |
| And when I wink, I wish I ne’er might wake, | |
| But sleeping, carried to the Stygian lake.” | | | | |
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