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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet LVI. The Dial! love, which shews how my days spend

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet LVI. The Dial! love, which shews how my days spend

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

THE DIAL! love, which shews how my days spend.

The leaden Plummets sliding to the ground!

My thoughts, which to dark melancholy bend.

The rolling Wheels, which turn swift hours round!

Thine eyes, PARTHENOPHE! my Fancy’s guide.

The Watch, continually which keeps his stroke!

By whose oft turning, every hour doth slide;

Figure the sighs, which from my liver smoke,

Whose oft invasions finish my life’s date.

The Watchman, which, each quarter, strikes the bell!

Thy love, which doth each part exanimate;

And in each quarter, strikes his forces fell.

That Hammer and great Bell, which end each hour!

Death, my life’s victor, sent by thy love’s power.