poem 16
Sonnet XVII
The rolling wheels that runneth often round,
The hardest steel in tract of time doth tear:
And drizzling drops that often do redound,
The firmest flint doth in continuance wear.
Yet cannot I with many a dropping tear
And long entreaty soften her hard heart;
That she will once vouchsafe my plaint to hear,
Or look with pity on my painful smart.
But when I plead, she bids me play my part,
And when I weep, she says tears are but water,
And when I sigh, she says I know the part,
And when I wail, she turns herself to laughter.
So do I weep, and wail, and plead in vain,
While she as steel and flint doth still remain.
(One of the Amoretti sonnets by Edmund Spenser, who in his short life from 1552 to 1599, produced so much poetry. His 'Faerie Queen' alone fills over 400 pages of my small print 100 year-old edition of his works. There are 88 of these sonnets, published in 1595, the year after he married. One wonders if they were all originally addressed to his wife, Elizabeth Boyle, who from the above does not seem to have been easily persuaded! He even wrote a long prose piece, 'A View of the present State of Ireland', a very contemporary-sounding subject)