| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Astrophel and Stella | | XXXVIII. This night, while sleep begins with heavy wings | | Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) |
| | | THIS night, while sleep begins with heavy wings | |
| To hatch mine eyes, and that unbitted thought | |
| Doth fall to stray; and my chief powers are brought | |
| To leave the sceptre of all subject things: | |
| The first that straight my fancy’s error brings | 5 |
| Unto my mind, is STELLA’s image; wrought | |
| By LOVE’s own self, but with so curious draught, | |
| That she, methinks, not only shines but sings: | |
| I start! look! hark! but what in closed up sense | |
| Was held, in open sense it flies away; | 10 |
| Leaving me nought but wailing eloquence. | |
| I, seeing better sights in sight’s decay; | |
| Called it anew, and wooed sleep again: | |
| But him her host, that unkind guest had slain. | | | | |
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