| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Astrophel and Stella | | XIX. In Cupid’s bow, how are my heart-strings bent! | | Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) |
| | | IN CUPID’s bow, how are my heart-strings bent! | |
| That see my wrack, and yet embrace the same. | |
| When most I glory, then I feel most shame. | |
| I willing run; yet while I run, repent. | |
| My best wits still their own disgrace invent. | 5 |
| My very ink turns straight to STELLA’s name; | |
| And yet my words—as them, my pen doth frame— | |
| Advise themselves that they are vainly spent. | |
| For though she pass all things, yet what is all | |
| That unto me; who fares like him that both | 10 |
| Looks to the skies and in a ditch doth fall? | |
| O let me prop my mind, yet in his growth, | |
| And not in nature for best fruits unfit! | |
| “Scholar!” saith LOVE, “bend hitherward your wit!” | | | | |
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