| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Astrophel and Stella | | XXIII. The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness | | Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) |
| | | 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, | 5 |
| Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies: | |
| Others, because the Prince my service tries, | |
| Think that I think State errors to redress. | |
| But harder judges judge ambition’s rage— | |
| Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place— | 10 |
| Holds my young brain captived in golden cage. | |
| O fools! or overwise! alas, the race | |
| Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start, | |
| But only STELLA’s eyes and STELLA’s heart. | | | | |
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