Sir Philip Sidney

Matthew Roydon (fl. 1580–1622)

From “An Elegy on a Friend’s Passion for His Astrophill”

WITHIN these woods of Arcadia

He chiefe delight and pleasure tooke,

And on the mountaine Parthenie,

Upon the chrystall liquid brooke,

The Muses met him ev’ry day,

That taught him sing, to write, and say.

When he descended downe the mount,

His personage seemed most divine,

A thousand graces one might count

Upon his lovely, cheerfull eine;

To heare him speake and sweetly smile,

You were in Paradise the while.

A sweet attractive kinde of grace,

A full assurance given by lookes,

Continuall comfort in a face,

The lineaments of Gospell bookes;

I trowe that countenance cannot lie,

Whose thoughts are legible in the eie.

Was never eie did see that face,

Was never eare did heare that tong,

Was never minde did minde his grace,

That ever thought the travell long;

But eies, and eares, and ev’ry thought,

Were with his sweet perfection caught.