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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet LXXXVII. Burn on, sweet Fire! For I live by that fuel

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet LXXXVII. Burn on, sweet Fire! For I live by that fuel

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

BURN on, sweet Fire! For I live by that fuel,

Whose smoke is as an incense to my soul!

Each sigh prolongs my smart. Be fierce and cruel,

My fair PARTHENOPHE! Frown and control!

Vex! torture! scald! disgrace me! Do thy will!

Stop up thine ears! With flint, immure thine heart!

And kill me with thy looks, if they would kill!

Thine eyes (those crystal phials which impart

The perfect balm to my dead-wounded breast!)

Thine eyes, the quivers, whence those darts were drawn,

Which me, to thy love’s bondage have addresst.

Thy smile, and frown! night star, and daylight’s dawn!

Burn on! Frown on! Vex! Stop thine ears! Torment me!

More, for thy beauty borne! would not repent me.