Page:Elizabethan sonnet-cycles.djvu/197

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XL

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.