Sonnet 103: Oh Happy Thames

Oh happy Thames, that didst my Stella bear,

I saw thyself with many a smiling line

Upon thy cheerful face, Joy's livery wear,

While those fair planets on thy streams did shine.

The boat for joy could not to dance forbear,

While wanton winds with beauties so divine

Ravish'd, stay'd not, till in her golden hair

They did themselves (oh sweetest prison) twine.

And fain those Aeol's youth there would their stay

Have mde, but, forc'd by Nature still to fly,

First did with puffing kiss those locks display:

She so dishevel'd, blush'd; from window I

With sight thereof cried out; oh fair disgrace,

Let Honor self to thee grant highest place.

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 103: Oh Happy Thames

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