Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella. Other Songs of Variable Verse

Sixth Song: O you that hear this voice!

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

O YOU that hear this voice!

O you that see this face!

Say whether of the choice

Deserves the former place?

Fear not to judge this bate,

For it is void of hate.

This side doth BEAUTY take.

For that doth MUSIC speak.

Fit orators to make

The strongest judgments weak.

The bar to plead the right,

Is only True Delight.

Thus doth the voice and face,

These gentle lawyers wage,

Like loving brothers’ case,

For father’s heritage:

That each, while each contends,

Itself to other lends.

For beauty beautifies,

With heavenly hue and grace,

The heavenly harmonies:

And in this faultless face,

The perfect beauties be

A perfect harmony.

MUSIC more lofty swells

In speeches nobly placed;

BEAUTY as far excels

In actions aptly graced.

A friend each party draws

To countenance his cause.

LOVE more affected seems

BEAUTY’s lovely light;

And WONDER more esteems

Of MUSIC’s wondrous might:

But both to both so bent

As both in both are spent.

MUSIC doth witness call

The ear, his truth to try;

BEAUTY brings to the hall

The judgment of the eye:

Both in their objects such,

As no exceptions touch.

The common SENSE which might

Be arbiter of this;

To be forsooth upright,

To both sides partial is:

He lays on this side chief praise;

Chief praise on that he lays.

Then REASON, Princess high!

Whose throne is in the mind;

Which music can in sky,

And hidden beauties find.

Say! whether thou wilt crown

With limitless renown?