Astrophil and Stella: 19th Sonnet

by Philip Sidney

On Cupids bowe, how are my hart strings bent?
That see my wracke, and yet imbrace the same:
When most I glorie, then I feele most shame;
I willing run, yet while I runne repent;
My best wittes still their owne disgrace invent,
My verie ynke, turnes straight to Stella’s name:
And yet my words (as them my penne doth frame)
Against themselves that they are vainely spent.
For though she passe all things, yet what is all
That unto me, who fare like him that both
Lookes to the skyes and in a ditch doth fall,
O let me prop my mind yet in his grouth
And not in nature, for best fruits unfit;
Scholler saith Love bend hitherward your wit.


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