Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Parthenophil and ParthenopheSonnet XXXIX. Then (from her Venus, and bright Mercury
Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)T
My heaven’s clear planets), did She shoot such blazes
As did infuse, with heat’s extremity,
Mine heart, which on despair’s bare pasture grazes.
Then, like the Scorpion, did She deadly sting me;
And with a pleasing poison pierced me!
Which, to these utmost sobs of death, did bring me,
And, through my soul’s faint sinews, searched me.
Yet might She cure me with the Scorpion’s Oil!
If that She were so kind as beautiful:
But, in my bale, She joys to see me boil;
Though be my Passions dear and dutiful,
Yet She, remorseless and unmerciful.
But when my thought of her is such a thing
To strike me dead; judge, if herself can sting!