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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet LXXVII. How can I live in mind’s or body’s health

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet LXXVII. How can I live in mind’s or body’s health

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

HOW can I live in mind’s or body’s health,

When all four Elements, my griefs conspire?

Of all heart’s joys depriving me, by stealth,

All yielding poisons to my long Desire.

The Fire, with heat’s extremes mine heart enraging.

Water, in tears, from Despair’s fountain flowing.

My soul in sighs, Air to Love’s soul engaging.

My Fancy’s coals, Earth’s melancholy blowing.

Thus these, by Nature, made for my relief;

Through that bold charge of thine imperious eye!

Turn all their graces into bitter grief.

As I were dead, should any of them die!

And they, my body’s substance, all be sick;

It follows, then, I cannot long be quick!