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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XXI. As winter’s rage, young plants unkindly spilleth

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Diella

Sonnet XXI. As winter’s rage, young plants unkindly spilleth

Richard Linche (fl. 1596–1601)

AS winter’s rage, young plants unkindly spilleth;

as hail, green corn; and lightnings, flowers perish;

So man’s decay is Love! whose heart it killeth,

if in his soul, he carefully it cherish.

O how alluringly he offers grace;

and breathes new hope of life into our thought.

With cheerful, pleasant (yet deceitful) face

he creeps and fawns, till, in his net w’ are caught;

Then, when he sees us captives by him led,

and sees us prostrate, humbly craving help,

So fierce a lion, Lybia never bred!

nor adder’s sting! nor any tigress’ whelp!

O blest be they that never felt his force!

LOVE hath, nor pity, mercy, nor remorse!