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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  XLIV. My words, I know, do well set forth my mind

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

XLIV. My words, I know, do well set forth my mind

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

MY words, I know, do well set forth my mind;

My mind bemoans his sense of inward smart:

Such smart may pity claim of any heart;

Her heart, sweet heart! is of no tigress kind:

And yet she hears, and yet no pity I find;

But more I cry, less grace she doth impart.

Alas, what cause is there, so overthwart,

That Nobleness itself makes thus unkind?

I much do guess, yet find no truth save this;

That when the breath of my complaints do touch

Those dainty doors unto the Court of Bliss,

The heavenly nature of that place is such,

That once come there, the sobs of my annoys

Are metamorphosed straight to tunes of joys.