dots-menu
×

Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XL. No art nor force can unto pity move

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Chloris

Sonnet XL. No art nor force can unto pity move

William Smith (fl. 1596)

NO art nor force can unto pity move

Her stony heart, that makes my heart to pant:

No pleading passions of my extreme love

Can mollify her mind of adamant.

Ah, cruel sex, and foe to all mankind!

Either you love, or else you hate, too much!

A glist’ring show of gold in you we find;

And yet you prove but copper in the touch.

But why? O why, do I so far digress?

Nature you made of pure and fairest mould,

The pomp and glory of Man to depress;

And as your slaves in thraldom them to hold:

Which by experience now too well I prove,

There is no pain unto the pains of love.