and with Petrarch’s sonnets 165 and 297 from the
Canzoniere; however, Daniel contrasts beauty and
chastity, rather than beauty and honesty. Importantly,
scholars also note that the word unkinde in line 13 not
only points to Delia’s unfavorable attitude toward the
speaker but also to her pitilessness—a quality incon-
gruent with sanctity. Overall, this sonnet is fi rmly
ensconced within the tradition because it highlights
the poet’s dismay at fi nding his beloved so beautiful
and yet so impossibly out of reach.
See also DELIA (OVERVIEW).
Josie Panzuto
Delia: Sonnet 33 (“When men shall fi nd thy
fl ower, thy glory pass”) SAMUEL DANIEL (1592)
In SAMUEL DANIEL’s Delia (1592), Sonnet 33 forms the
penultimate link in the second CORONA-style group of
SONNETs (ll. 31–34). The speaker of this poem softens
the message imparted by the CARPE DIEM motif in Son-
net 31 and promises Delia, his beloved, a “miracle”—
he will love her even more than he already does when
she is old and grey (l. 9). Sonnets 31 and 32 deal spe-
cifi cally with Delia at the height of her youth. Sonnet
33, however, situates her in the future, “When men
shall fi nde thy fl owre, thy glory passe” (l. 1). Within
the fi rst quatrain, the speaker envisages a Delia who
sits with “carefull brow” before a mirror and realizes
that her bloom or “glory” has faded (ll. 1–2 respec-
tively). Presumably, Delia’s brow is not only pensive
but also expresses mournfulness, and sadness. The
Oxford English Dictionary cites this obsolete meaning of
carefull as appearing for the fi rst time in Daniel’s Com-
plaint of Rosamond, published alongside Delia in 1592.
By the second quatrain, Delia is no longer alone
before the mirror. She is joined by the speaker’s prom-
ise of love, or “faith,” which, paradoxically, has not
died down with time and Delia’s aging but has contin-
ued, steadfastly and inversely, to her repulsion of him,
to “waxe, when thou art in thy wayning” (l. 8). The
third quatrain bears the most rhetorical weight because
the poet further develops the idea in the second qua-
train, that the speaker’s love has continued through
time, and that even without heat, his love has contin-
ued to burn. Importantly, the miracle his love has
achieved is “That fi re can burne, when all the matter’s
spent” (l. 10). Sonnet 33 decidedly moves away from
the immediate concerns of the carpe diem motif and
focalizes love onto a grander, cosmic level. What is
miraculous about the speaker’s love is that while in the
second quatrain it “waxes” as the moon with his
beloved’s “wayning” youth, by the third quatrain, his
love defi es the laws of physics and continues to burn
even without fuel (l. 8). It is only then that the speaker
wishes Delia would “repent” her actions (ll. 12–13).
Her repentance, however, does not suggest retribution
to the speaker, nor a felicitous ending. The poem’s
rhyming COUPLET with its season CONCEIT—“When
Winter snowes vppon thy golden heares”—leaves the
reader, Delia, and the speaker to gaze upon old age (l.
14). This last line links Sonnet 33 to Sonnet 34.
Like most of the Delia sonnets, Sonnet 33 deploys
the same structure as the Elizabethan sonnet with its
three quatrains, rhyming couplet, and rhyming scheme.
Additionally, it calls attention to the carpe diem motif,
and to Petrarchan conceits with the description of
blond hair as “golden heares” (l. 14). Critics have
noticed shared affi nities between WILLIAM SHAKE-
SPEARE’s Sonnet 2, “When forty winters shall besiege
thy brow,” but debates on poetic infl uence remain
inconclusive. The accepted source of this sonnet is
Sonnet 77 from Torquato Tasso’s Rime (1567).
See also DELIA (OVERVIEW), ENGLISH SONNET.
Josie PanzutoDelia: Sonnet 45 (“Care-charmer Sleep, son of
the sable Night”) SAMUEL DANIEL (1592) One of
SAMUEL DANIEL’s best-known SONNETs from Delia
(1592), Sonnet 45 begins with an APOSTROPHE and
stock epithet for sleep in “Care-charmer sleepe” (l. 1).
The speaker in this sonnet is tormented by his love for
Delia. At night, his mind fashions dreams wherein he
is happy with his beloved; upon waking up from his
false dreams, he realizes that his love for her remains
unrequited. Prayer-like, the fi rst quatrain of this son-
net qualifi es sleep as “sonne of Sable night;” and
“brother to Death” and asks that it rouse him into a
state of forgetful awakeness (ll. 1–2). The two quatrains
are drawn closer together rhetorically as the last sen-144 DELIA: SONNET 33