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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  XCIII. O fate! O fault! O curse! child of my bliss!

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

XCIII. O fate! O fault! O curse! child of my bliss!

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

O FATE! O fault! O curse! child of my bliss!

What sobs can give words grace my grief to show?

What ink is black enough to paint my woe?

Through me, wretched me! even STELLA vexèd is.

Yet TRUTH—if caitiff’s breath may call thee!—this

Witness with me, that my foul stumbling so

From carelessness did in no manner grow;

But wit confused with too much care, did miss.

And do I then myself this vain ’scuse give?

I have (live I, and know this!) harmèd thee!

Though worlds quite me, shall I me self forgive?

Only with pains, my pains thus eased be,

That all thy hurts in my heart’s rack I read:

I cry thy sighs, my Dear! thy tears I bleed.