| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | O Sweet Woods | | By Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) |
| | | O SWEET woods, the delight of solitariness, | |
| O, how much do I love your solitariness! | |
| From fame’s desire, from love’s delight retired, | |
| In these sad groves an hermit’s life I led; | |
| And those false pleasures which I once admired, | 5 |
| With sad remembrance of my fall, I dread. | |
| To birds, to trees, to earth, impart I this, | |
| For she less secret and as senseless is. | |
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| Experience, which alone repentance brings. | |
| Doth bid me now my heart from love estrange: | 10 |
| Love is disdained when it doth look at kings, | |
| And love low placed is base and apt to change. | |
| Their power doth take from him his liberty, | |
| Her want of worth makes him in cradle die. | |
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| O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness, | 15 |
| O, how much do I love your solitariness! | | | | |
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