dots-menu
×

Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet VIII. Oft and in vain my rebel thoughts have ventured

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Sonnets after Astrophel, etc.

Sonnet VIII. Oft and in vain my rebel thoughts have ventured

Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)

[Reprinted in Daniel’s Delia, edition 1592, but not in the final edition 1594.]

OFT and in vain my rebel thoughts have ventured

To stop the passage of my vanquished heart;

And close the way, my friendly foe first entered:

Striving thereby to free my better part.

Whilst guarding thus the windows of my thought,

Where my heart’s thief to vex me made her choice;

And thither all my forces to transport:

Another passage opens at her voice.

Her voice betrays me to her hand and eye,

My freedom’s tyrant, glorying in her art:

But, ah! sweet foe! small is the victory,

With three such powers to plague one silly heart.

Yet my soul’s sovereign! since I must resign;

Reign in my thoughts! My love and life are thine!