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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  LXXXVI. Alas! whence came this change of looks? If I

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

LXXXVI. Alas! whence came this change of looks? If I

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

ALAS! whence came this change of looks? If I

Have changed desert, let mine own conscience be

A still felt plague to self-condemning me!

Let woe gripe on my heart! shame load mine eye!

But if all faith, like spotless ermine, lie

Safe in my soul; which only doth to thee

(As his sole object of felicity)

With wings of love in air of wonder fly:

O ease your hand! treat not so hard your slave!

In justice, pains come not till faults do call:

Or if I needs, sweet Judge! must torments have;

Use something else to chasten me withal,

Than those blest eyes, where all my hopes do dwell.

No doom should make once heaven become his hell.