dots-menu
×

Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XX. Ye wasteful woods, bear witness of my woe!

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Chloris

Sonnet XX. Ye wasteful woods, bear witness of my woe!

William Smith (fl. 1596)

YE wasteful woods, bear witness of my woe!

Wherein my plaints did oftentimes abound.

Ye, careless birds, my sorrows well do know!

They, in your songs, were wont to make a sound.

Thou, pleasant spring, canst record likewise bear.

Of my designs and sad disparagement!

When thy transparent billows mingled were

With those downfalls which from mine eyes were sent.

The echo of my still-lamenting cries,

From hollow vaults, in treble voice resoundeth;

And then into the empty air it flies,

And back again from whence it came reboundeth.

That Nymph, unto my clamours doth reply,

“Being likewise scorned in love, as well as I.”