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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  III. Let dainty wits cry on the Sisters nine

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

III. Let dainty wits cry on the Sisters nine

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

LET dainty wits cry on the Sisters nine,

That bravely maskt, their fancies may be told;

Or PINDAR’s apes flaunt they in phrases fine,

Enamelling with pied flowers their thoughts of gold;

Or else let them in statelier glory shine,

Ennobling new-found tropes with problems old;

Or with strange similes enrich each line,

Of herbs or beasts which Inde or Afric hold:

For me, in sooth, no Muse but one I know.

Phrases and problems from my reach do grow,

And strange things cost too dear for my poor sprites.

How then? Even thus. In STELLA’s face I read

What love and beauty be. Then all my deed

But copying is, what in her Nature writes.