Sonnet 24: Rich Fools There Be

Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart

Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow:

And damning their own selves to Tantal's smart,

Wealth breeding want, more blist more wretched grow.

Yet to those fools heav'n such wit doth impart

As what their hands do hold, their heads do know,

And knowing love, and loving, lay apart,

As sacred things, far from all danger's show.

But that rich fool who by blind Fortune's lot

The richest gem of love and life enjoys,

And can with foul abuse such beauties blot;

Let him, depriv'd of sweet but unfelt joys,

(Exil'd for aye from those high treasures, which

He knows not) grow in only folly rich.

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 24: Rich Fools There Be

More poems from same author

Unlock the Power of Language & AI

Lughaat

Spell Checker

OCR