Sonnet 20: Fly, Fly, My Friends

Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound; fly!

See there that boy, that murthering boy I say,

Who like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie,

Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey.

So tyrant he no fitter place could spy,

Nor so fair level in so secret stay,

As that sweet black which veils the heav'nly eye:

There himself with his shot he close doth lay.

Poor passenger, pass now thereby I did,

And stayed pleas'd with the prospect of the place,

While that black hue from me the bad guest hid:

But straight I saw motions of lightning grace,

And then descried the glist'ring of his dart:

But ere I could fly hence, it pierc'd my heart.

Philp Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney (born November 30, 1554, Penshurst, Kent, England—died October 17, 1586, Arnhem, Netherlands) Elizabethan courtier, statesman, soldier, poet, and patron of scholars and poets, considered the ideal gentleman of his day. After Shakespeare’s sonnets, Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella is considered the finest Elizabethan sonnet cycle. His The Defence of Poesie introduced the critical ideas of Renaissance theorists to England. He was buried at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on February 16, 1587, with an elaborate funeral of a type usually reserved for great noblemen. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and scholars throughout Europe issued memorial volumes in his honour, while almost every English poet composed verses in his praise. He won this adulation even though he had accomplished no action of consequence; it would be possible to write a history of Elizabethan political and military affairs without so much as mentioning his name. It is not what he did but what he was that made him so widely admired: the embodiment of the Elizabethan ideal of gentlemanly virtue.

More poems from same author

Sonnet 1: Loving In Truth Sonnet 13: Phoebus Was Judge Sonnet 20: Fly, Fly, My Friends Sonnet 24: Rich Fools There Be Sonnet 101: Stella Is Sick

Sonnet 20: Fly, Fly, My Friends

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