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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Sonnet XXXVII. But Pity, which sometimes doth lions move

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Parthenophil and Parthenophe

Sonnet XXXVII. But Pity, which sometimes doth lions move

Barnabe Barnes (1569?–1609)

BUT Pity, which sometimes doth lions move,

Removed my sun from moody Lion’s cave;

And into Virgo’s bower did next remove

His fiery wheels. But then She answer gave

That “She was all vowed to virginity!”

Yet said, “’Bove all men, She would most affect me!”

Fie, Delian goddess! In thy company

She learned, with honest colour, to neglect me!

And underneath chaste veils of single life,

She shrouds her crafty claws, and lion’s heart!

Which, with my senses, now, do mingle strife

’Twixt loves and virtues, which provoke my smart.

Yet from these Passions can I never part,

But still I make my suits importunate

To thee! which makes my case unfortunate.