dots-menu
×

Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  LVI. Fie! school of Patience, fie! your lesson is

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

LVI. Fie! school of Patience, fie! your lesson is

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

FIE! school of PATIENCE, fie! your lesson is

Far far too long to learn it without book.

What! a whole week without one piece of look!

And think I should not your large precepts miss?

When I might read those letters fair of bliss

Which in her face teach virtue: I could brook

Somewhat thy leaden counsels; which I took

As of a friend that meant not much amiss.

But now that I, alas, do want her sight;

What! dost thou think that I can ever take

In thy cold stuff a phlegmatic delight?

No, PATIENCE! If thou wilt my good; then make

Her come, and hear with patience my desire:

And then, with patience bid me bear my fire!