Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Parthenophil and ParthenopheCanzon 3. Sweet is the golden Cowslip bright and fair!
Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)S
Ten times more sweet, more golden, fair, and bright,
Thy Tresses! in rich trammelled knots, resembling.
V
More lovely, smooth, and white his feathers are,
The silver lustre of thy Brows dissembling!
Bright are the Sunbeams, on the water trembling!
Much brighter, shining like love’s holy fire,
On well watered diamonds of those eyes,
Whose heat’s reflection, Love’s Affection tries!
Sweet is the Censer, whose fume doth aspire
Appeasing L
More sweet the Censer, like thy seemly Nose!
Whose beauty (than Invention’s wonder higher!)
Nine times nine Muses never could disclose.
Thy modest rosy blush! pure, white, and red!
Yet I thy white and red praise more and more
In my sweet Lady’s Cheeks since they be shed.
When Grapes to full maturity do tend,
So round, so red, so sweet, all joy before
Continually I long for them therefore
To suck their sweet, and with my lips to touch!
Not so much for the Muses’ nectar sake,
But that they from thy Lips their purpose take.
Sweet! pardon, though I thee compare to such.
Proud Nature, which so white L
And framed their lovely heads, so white and round.
How white and round! It doth exceed so much,
That nature nothing like thy Chin hath found!
Fair orient pearls! O, how much I admire you!
Not for your orient gloss, or virtue’s rareness,
But that you touch her Neck, I much desire you!
Whose whiteness so much doth your lustre check,
As whitest lilies the Primrose in fairness;
A neck most gorgeous, even in Nature’s bareness.
Divine Rosebuds, which, when Spring doth surrender
His crown to Summer, he last trophy reareth;
By which he, from all seasons, the palm beareth!
Fair purple crispèd folds sweet-dewed and tender;
Whose sweetness never wears, though moisture weareth,
Sweet ripe red Strawberries, whose heavenly sap
I would desire to suck; but Loves ingender
A nectar more divine in thy sweet Pap!
Whose heavenly nectar, and ambrosial juice
Proceed from Violets sweet, and asier-like,
And from the matchless purple Fleur de luce.
Round rising hills, white hills (sweet V
Nature’s rich trophies, not those hills unlike,
Which that great monarch, C
From th’ Arctic to the Antarctic, dignified
With proud Plus ultra: which Cerography
In unknown Characters of Victory,
Nature hath set; by which she signified
Her conquests’ miracle reared up on high!
Soft ivory balls! with which, whom she lets play,
Above all mortal men is magnified,
And wagers ’bove all price shall bear away!
Between whose lovely valleys, smooth and straight,
That glassy moisture lies, that slippery dew!
Whose courage touched, could dead men animate!
Old N
He should but touch) his young years might renew!
And with all youthful joys himself indue!
O smooth white satin, matchless, soft, and bright!
More smooth than oil! more white than lily is!
As hard to match, as Love’s Mount hilly is!
As soft as down! clear, as on glass sunlight!
To praise your white, my tongue too much silly is!
How much, at your smooth soft, my sense amazed is!
Which charms the feeling, and enchants the sight:
But yet her bright, smooth, white, soft Skin more praisèd is!
For that even chesse of feather in her wing!
So white! and in such decent order placed!
When she, the doly Dirge of Death did sing,
With her young mournful cygnets’ train attended!
Yet, not because the milk-white wings her graced,
But when I think on my Lady’s Waist,
Whose ivory sides, a snowy shadow gives
Of her well-ordered ribs, which rise in falling!
How oft, the swan I pitied, her death calling,
With dreary notes! Not that she so short lives,
And ’mongst the Muses sings for her installing;
But that so clear a white should be disdained
With one that for Love’s sugared torment lives!
And makes that white a plague to lovers pained.
The brethren Winds, in their power disagreeing!
East, for unwholesome vapour! South, for rain!
North, for, by snows and whirlwinds, bitter being!
I loved the West, because it was the Nurse
Of F
Yet, ten times more than these, I did curse again!
Because they are inconstant and unstable
In drought! in moisture! frosty cold! and heat!
Here, with a sunny smile! there, stormy threat!
Much like my Lady’s fancies variable!
How oft with feet, did I the marble beat;
Harming my feet, yet never hurt the stone!
Because, like her, it was inpenetrable,
And her heart’s nature with it, was all one?
To counter charm her heart! to stone converted.
I might work miracles to change again
The hard to soft! that it might rue my pain.
But of herself she is so straitly skirted
(Falsely reputing True Love, Honour’s Stain)
That I shall never move, and never die,
So many ways her mind I have exported!
Yet shall I live, through virtue of her eye!