Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Sonnets and Poetical TranslationsXXV. Who hath his fancy pleased
Sir Philip Sidney (15541586)W
With fruits of happy sight;
Let here his eyes be raised,
On Nature’s sweetest light.
A light, which doth dissever
And yet unite the eyes;
A light, which dying never,
Is cause the looker dies.
In life of lover’s heart:
He ever dies that wasteth
In love his chiefest part.
Thus is her life still guarded
In never dying faith,
Thus is his death rewarded,
Since she lives in his death.
Doth answer well the pain.
Small loss of mortal treasure,
Who may immortal gain.
Immortal be her graces,
Immortal is her mind:
They fit for heavenly places,
This heaven in it doth bind.
Nor sense that grace descries:
Yet eyes; deprivèd be not,
From sight of her fair eyes.
Which as of inward glory
They are the outward seal;
So may they live still sorry,
Which die not in that weal.
With fruits of happy sight;
Let here his eyes be raised
On Nature’s sweetest light!