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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  LXXVIII. O how the pleasant airs of true love be

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

LXXVIII. O how the pleasant airs of true love be

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

O HOW the pleasant airs of true love be

Infected by those vapours, which arise

From out that noisome gulf, which gaping lies

Between the jaws of hellish JEALOUSY.

A monster! others’ harm! self’s misery!

BEAUTY’s plague! VIRTUE’s scourge! succour of lies!

Who his own joy to his own hurt applies;

And only cherish doth with injury!

Who since he hath—by Nature’s special grace—

So piercing paws, as spoil when they embrace;

So nimble feet, as stir still though on thorns;

So many eyes, aye seeking their own woe;

So ample ears, that never good news know:

Is it not evil that such a devil wants horns?