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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  XXI. Our words, my friend! (right healthful caustics!) blame

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

XXI. Our words, my friend! (right healthful caustics!) blame

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

OUR words, my friend! (right healthful caustics!) blame

My young mind marred, whom love doth windlass so;

That mine own writings (like bad servants) show

My wits quick in vain thoughts; in virtue, lame.

“That PLATO I read for nought, but if he tame

Such coltish years; that to my birth I owe

Nobler desires: lest else that friendly foe

Great Expectation, wear a train of shame.”

“For since mad March great promise made of me;

If now the May of my years much decline,

What can be hoped my harvest time will be?”

Sure you say well! Your wisdom’s golden mine,

Dig deep with learning’s spade! Now tell me this,

Hath this world ought so fair as STELLA is?