Sir Philip Sidney

O Lord in me there lieth nought
But to thy search revealed lies;
For when I sit
Thou markest it:

Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend,
Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire,
Than did on him who first stole down the fire,
While Love on me doth all his quiver spend,

With what sharp checks I in myself am shent,
When into Reason's audit I do go:
And by just counts myself a bankrupt know Of all the goods, which heav'n to me hath lent:
Unable quite to pay even Nature's rent,

The wisest scholar of the wight most wise By Phoebus' doom, with sugar'd sentence says,
That Virtue, if it once met with our eyes,
Strange flames of love it in our souls would raise;
But for that man with pain his truth descries,

The curious wits seeing dull pensiveness Bewray itself in my long settled eyes,
Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise,
With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess.
Some that know how my spring I did address

Be your words made, good sir, of Indian ware, That you allow me them by so small rate? Or do you cutted Spartans imitate? Or do you mean my tender ears to spare, That to my questions you so total are? When I demand of Phœnix Stella's state, You…

Because I breathe not love to every one,
Nor do not use set colours for to wear,
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair,
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan,

Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow:
And damning their own selves to Tantal's smart,
Wealth breeding want, more blist more wretched grow.
Yet to those fools heav'n such…

Because I oft in dark abstracted guise Seem most alone in greatest company,
With dearth of words, or answers quite awry,
To them that would make speech of speech arise,
They deem, and of their doom the rumor flies,

Let dainty wits cry on the sisters nine,
That, bravely mask'd, their fancies may be told;
Or,
Pindar's apes, flaunt they in phrases fine

Come Sleep;
O Sleep! the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release

Strephon.
You Gote-herd Gods, that loue the grassie mountaines,
You Nimphes that haunt the springs in pleasant vallies,
You Satyrs ioyde with free and quiet forests

Clothed with state, and girt with might,
Monarch-like Jehovah reigns,
He who earth's foundation pight — Pight at first, and yet sustains;
He whose stable throne

"Who is it that this dark
Underneath my window plaineth?"'It is one who from thy
Being, ah! exiled,
Every other vulgar light.'"Why, alas! and are you he?

Phoebus was judge between Jove,
Mars, and Love,
Of those three gods, whose arms the fairest were:
Jove's golden shield did eagle sables bear,

It is most true, that eyes are form'd to serve The inward light; and that the heavenly part Ought to be king, from whose rules who do swerve,
Rebles to Nature, strive for their own smart.
It is most true, what we call Cupid's…

With how sad steps,
O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be that even in heav'nly

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange, one for the other giv'n.
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driv'n.

You that with allegory's curious frame,
Of others' children changelings use to make,
With me those pains for God's sake do not take:
I list not dig so deep for brazen fame.

Virtue, alas, now let me take some rest.
Thou set'st a bate between my soul and wit.
If vain love have my simple soul oppress'd,
Leave what thou likest not, deal not thou with it.

The Lord, the Lord, my Shepherd is,
And so can never
Taste misery:
He rests me in green pastures His:

Like some weak lords, neighbor'd by mighty kings,
To keep themselves and their chief cities free,
Do easily yield, that all their coasts may be Ready to store their camps of needful things:
So Stella's heart finding what power Love…

Who will in fairest book of nature know
How virtue may best lodg'd in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.

Cupid, because thou shin'st in Stella's eyes,
That from her locks, thy day-nets, noe scapes free,
That those lips swell, so full of thee they be,
That her sweet breath makes oft thy flames to rise,