Penultimate
sonnet!—
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CLIII
Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:
A maid of Dian's this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;
Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love,
A dateless lively heat, still to endure,
And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.
But at my mistress' eye Love's brand
new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my
breast;
I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,
And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,
But found no cure, the bath for my help
lies
Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress'
eyes.
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Once
again, a volta in the Petrarchan position and another volta in the
Shakespearean position, both marked by the same word but; also, the second one would be the main volta, and the point of
the poem would be the last three words.
What’s new is the development of a backstory with mythological
underpinnings in the first two quatrains, thereby elevating the Dark Lady to
mythological dimensions when she is connected to the back story in the third
quatrain and the closing couplet. Tomorrow,
the last sonnet in the book …
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