| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Astrophel and Stella | | XXIV. Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart | | Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) |
| | | 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 blest, more wretched grow. | |
| Yet to those fools, heaven such wit doth impart, | 5 |
| As what their hands do hold, their heads do know; | |
| And knowing, love and loving lay apart, | |
| As sacred things, far from all danger’s show: | |
| But that rich fool, who by blind Fortune’s lot, | |
| The richest gem of love and life enjoys; | 10 |
| And can with foul abuse, such beauties blot: | |
| Let him deprived of sweet but unfelt joys, | |
| (Exiled for aye from those high treasures, which | |
| He knows not) grow in only folly rich! | | | | |
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