Astrophil and Stella: 23rd Sonnet

by Philip Sidney

The curious wits, seeing dull pensivenes
Bewray it selfe in my long setled eyes:
Whence those same fumes of mellancholie rise,
With idle paines and missing ayme do gesse;
Some that know how, my spring I did adresse,
Deem’d that my Muse some fruite of knowledge plyes:
Others, because the Prince my service tryes,
Thinke that I thinke, State errors to redresse;
But harder Judges, judge ambitious rage,
(Scourge of it selfe, still clyming slippery place)
Holds my young braine captiv’d in golden cage.
O fooles, or over-wise, alas the case;
Of all my thoughts have neither stop nor start,
But onely Stellas eyes, and Stellas hart.


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