Sonnet XI. What She can be so cruel as my Love

Richard Linche (fl. 1596–1601)

WHAT She can be so cruel as my Love,

or bear a heart so pitiless as She?

Whom love, looks, words, tears, prayers do not move;

nor sighs, nor vows prevail to pity me.

She calls my love, “a SINON to her heart!”

“my looks,” she saith, “are like the crocodile’s!”

“My words the Sirens sing, with guileful art!”

tears, “CIRCE’s floods!” sighs, vows, “deceitful guiles!”

But my poor heart hath no interpreter

but love, looks, words, tears, prayers, sighs, or vows!

Then must it die! sith She, my comforter,

whate’er I do, nor liketh, nor allows.

With TITIUS, thus the vulture Sorrow eats me!

With steel-twigged rods, thus tyrant CUPID beats me!