Love
Chloris: Sonnet 40
From Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles, ed. M. F. Crow (1897)
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.
Cite this poem
MLA
Smith, William. “Chloris: Sonnet 40.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/smith_william/42/.
Chicago
Smith, William. “Chloris: Sonnet 40.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/smith_william/42/.
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