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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  XXV. The wisest scholar of the wight most wise

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

XXV. The wisest scholar of the wight most wise

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

THE WISEST scholar of the wight most wise,

By PHŒBUS’ doom, with sugared 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 this truth descries,

Whiles he each thing in sense’s balance weighs:

And so nor will, nor can behold those skies,

Which inward sun to heroic minds displays.”

Virtue, of late, with virtuous care to stir

Love of herself, takes STELLA’s shape; that she

To mortal eyes might sweetly shine in her.

It is most true. For since I her did see,

Virtue’s great beauty in that face I prove,

And find th’effect: for I do burn in love.