Sonnets, Etc, XI

Strange icy throes the arms of Daphne bind, Which shoot, and spread, and lengthen into boughs; And into green leaves metamorphosed shows The head whose locks, wooed by the summer wind, Made the fine gold seem dim; the rigorous rind Clothes the soft members that still pant; her feet, Snowy as swift, in earth fast rooted meet, By thousand tortuous fibres intertwined. The author of an injury so great, With virtue of his tears this laurel fed, Which flourished thus, perpetual greenness keeping; Oh fatal growth! oh miserable estate! That from his weeping each fresh day should spread The very cause and reason of his weeping.