Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Sonnets and Poetical TranslationsXXX. What changes here, O hair!
Sir Philip Sidney (15541586)
W
I see? since I saw you.
How ill fits you, this green to wear,
For hope the colour due.
Indeed I well did hope,
Though hope were mixed with fear,
No other shepherd should have scope
Once to approach this hair.
My D
With thousand pretty childish plays,
If I wore you or no?
Alas, how oft with tears,
O tears of guileful breast!
She seemèd full of jealous fears;
Whereat I did but jest.
If I then faulty be,
That trust those killing eyes, I would,
Since they did warrant me.
Have you not seen her mood?
What streams of tears she spent!
Till that I swear my faith so stood,
As her words had it bent.
In one that changeth so?
Or where one’s love so constant been,
Who ever saw such woe?
Ah hair! are you not grieved?
To come from whence you be:
Seeing how once you saw I lived;
To see me, as you see?
I saw this woman sit,
Where “Sooner die, than change my state,”
She, with her finger, writ.
Thus my belief was stayed.
“Behold love’s mighty hand
On things,” were by a woman said,
And written in the sand.