Delia: Sonnet 11

TEares, vowes and prayers, winne the hardest hart;
Teares, vowes and prayers, haue I spent in vaine;
Teares cannot soften Flint, nor vowes conuart,
Prayers preuaile not with a quaint disdaine.
I lose my teares, where I haue lost my loue,
I vowe my faith, where faith is not regarded,
I pray in vaine, a merciles to moue:
So rare a faith ought better be rewarded;
Yet though I cannot win her will with teares,
Though my soules I doll scorneth all my vowes;
Though all my prayers be to so deafe eares,
No sauour though the cruell faire allowes,
Yet will I weepe, vowe, pray to cruell shee:
Flint, frost, disdaine, weares, melts, and yeelds we see.