| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Astrophel and Stella | | LXIII. O grammar rules! O now your virtues show! | | Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) |
| | | O GRAMMAR rules! O now your virtues show! | |
| So children still read you with awful eyes; | |
| As my young Dove may in your precepts wise | |
| Her grant to me, by her own virtue know. | |
| For late, with heart most high, with eyes most low; | 5 |
| I craved the thing which ever she denies: | |
| She lightning love, displaying VENUS’ skies, | |
| Lest once should not be heard; said twice “No!” “No!” | |
| Sing then my Muse! now Io Pæan sing! | |
| Heavens! envy not at my high triumphing; | 10 |
| But Grammar’s force with sweet success confirm! | |
| For Grammar says (O this dear STELLA’s “Nay!”) | |
| For Grammar says (to Grammar, who says “Nay”?) | |
| “That in one speech, two negatives affirm.” | | | | |
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