dots-menu
×

Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  LXXIII. Love still a boy, and oft a wanton is

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

LXXIII. Love still a boy, and oft a wanton is

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

LOVE still a boy, and oft a wanton is;

Schooled only by his mother’s tender eye.

What wonder then, if he his lesson miss;

When for so soft a rod, dear play he try?

And yet my Star, because a sugared kiss

In sport I suckt, while she asleep did lie:

Doth lower; nay, chide; nay, threat for only this!

“Sweet! It was saucy LOVE, not humble I.”

But no ’scuse serves; she makes her wrath appear

In Beauty’s throne. See now! who dares come near

Those scarlet judges, threat’ning bloody pain?

O heavenly fool! Thy most kiss-worthy face,

Anger invests with such a lovely grace;

That ANGER’s self! I needs must kiss again!