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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  CIV. Envious wits! what hath been mine offence

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

CIV. Envious wits! what hath been mine offence

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

ENVIOUS wits! what hath been mine offence,

That with such poisonous care my looks you mark?

That each word, nay sigh of mine you hark,

As grudging me my sorrows’ eloquence?

Ah! is it not enough, that I am thence!

Thence! so far thence! that scarcely any spark

Of comfort dare come to this dungeon dark;

Where rigour’s exile locks up all my sense?

But if I by a happy window pass;

If I but stars upon mine armour bear;

Sick, thirsty, glad (though but of empty glass!)

Your moral notes straight my hid meaning tear

From out my ribs; and puffing prove that I

Do STELLA love. Fools! who doth it deny?