Astrophil and Stella: 60th Sonnet

by Philip Sidney

When my good Angell guides me to the place
where al my good I do in Stella see,
That Heaven of joyes throwes only downe on me
Thundred disdaines, and Lightning of disgrace;
But when the ruggedst step of fortunes race
Makes me fall from her sight, then sweetly she
With words, whereing the Muses Treasures be,
Shewes love and pittie to my absent case.
Now I (witt-beaten long, by hardest fate)
So dull am, that I cannot looke into
The ground of this fierce love, and loving hate?
Then some good body tell me how to do,
Whose presence absence, absence presence is:
Blest in my curse, and curssed in my blisse.


Monadnock Valley Press > Sidney