Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Amoretti and EpithalamionSonnet XXXII. The painful smith, with force of fervent heat
Edmund Spenser (1552?1599)T
The hardest iron soon doth mollify;
That with his heavy sledge he can it beat,
And fashion to what he it list apply.
Yet cannot all these flames, in which I fry,
Her heart more hard than iron soft a whit;
Ne all the plaints and prayers, with which I
Do beat on th’ anvil of her stubborn wit
But still, the more she fervent sees my fit,
The more she freezeth in her wilful pride;
And harder grows, the harder she is smit
With all the plaints which to her be applied.
What then remains but I to ashes burn,
And she to stones at length all frozen turn!