VI. Some lovers speak, when they their Muses entertain

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

SOME lovers speak, when they their Muses entertain,

Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires,

Of force of heavenly beams infusing hellish pain,

Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires.

Some one his song, in JOVE and JOVE’s strange tales attires;

Bordered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain:

Another humbler wit to shepherd’s pipe retires,

Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein.

To some a sweetest plaint, a sweetest style affords;

While tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his words:

His paper, pale despair; and pain, his pen doth move.

I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they;

But think that all the map of my state I display,

When trembling voice brings forth, that I do STELLA love.