| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Astrophel and Stella | | LIV. Because I breathe not love to every one | | Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) |
| | | BECAUSE I breathe not love to every one, | |
| Nor do not use set colours for to wear, | |
| Nor nourish special locks of vowèd hair, | |
| Nor give each speech a full point of a groan. | |
| The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan | 5 |
| Of them who in their lips, LOVE’s standard bear: | |
| “What he!” say they of me, “now I dare swear | |
| He cannot love. No, no, let him alone!” | |
| And think so still! so STELLA know my mind. | |
| Profess indeed I do not CUPID’s art: | 10 |
| But you, fair maids! at length, this true shall find, | |
| That his right badge is but worn in the heart. | |
| Dumb swans not chattering pies, do lovers prove. | |
| They love indeed who quake to say they love. | | | | |
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