Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

LXXXIX. Now that of absence the most irksome night

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

NOW that of absence the most irksome night,

With darkest shade, doth overcome my day:

Since STELLA’s eyes wont to give me my day;

Leaving my hemisphere, leave me in night.

Each day seems long, and longs for long-stayed night;

The night as tedious, woos th’approach of day.

Tired with the dusty toils of busy day;

Languisht with horrors of the silent night:

Suffering the evils both of the day and night;

While no night is more dark than is my day,

Nor no day hath less quiet than my night.

With such bad mixture of my night and day;

That living thus in blackest winter night,

I feel the flames of hottest summer’s day.