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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet LXII. “Fie! fie, fierce Tyrant! Quench this furious rage!

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet LXII. “Fie! fie, fierce Tyrant! Quench this furious rage!

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

“FIE! fie, fierce Tyrant! Quench this furious rage!

O quench this rageous fury, little god!

Nay, mighty god! my fury’s heat assuage!

Nor are thine, little darts, nor brittle rod!

Ah, that thou hadst a sweet recuring dart!

Or such a rod, as into health might whip me!

With this, to level at my troubled heart;

To warn with scourge, that no bright eye might trip me!”

Vain words, which vanish with the clouds, why speak I!

And bootless options, buildèd with void air!

How oft, enraged in hopeless Passions, break I!

How oft, in false vain hope, and blank despair!

How oft, left lifeless at thy cloudy frown!

How oft, in Passion mounted, and plucked down!