Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586). Wooing Stuff. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

Verse > Anthologies > William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. > The Book of Elizabethan Verse

CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Wooing Stuff

By Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)


FAINT 1 Amorist, what! dost thou think
To taste love’s honey, and not drink
One dram of gall? or to devour
A world of sweet and taste no sour?
Dost thou ever think to enter	5
The Elysian fields, that dar’st not venture
In Charon’s barge? a lover’s mind
Must use to sail with every wind.
He that loves, and fears to try,
Learns his mistress to deny.	10
Doth she chide thee? ’tis to shew it
That thy coldness makes her do it.
Is she silent? is she mute?
Silence fully grants thy suit.
Doth she pout, and leave the room?	15
Then she goes to bid thee come.
Is she sick? Why then be sure
She invites thee to the cure.
Doth she cross thy suit with No?
Tush, she loves to hear thee woo.	20
Doth she call the faith of man
In question? Nay, she loves thee than:
And if ere she makes a blot,
She’s lost if that thou hit’st her not.
He that after ten denials	25
Dares attempt no further trials,
Hath no warrant to acquire
The dainties of his chaste desire.

Note 1. Dr. Grosart, in his ed. of Sidney’s Complete Poems, vol. II., in a note to the Third Division, p. 26, says: “I give the heading of Pansies from Penshurst and Wilton (pansies for thoughts—Hamlet, iv. 5) to such of the Verse of Sidney’s as has not been hitherto brought under the other divisions, etc.” The sixth in this division is Wooing-Stuffe, which he states is from MS. Cottoni Posthuma, p. 327. [back]

CONTENTS · GLOSSARY · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.

Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry