Sonnet 104: Envious wits

Envious wits, what hath been mine offense,

That with such poisonous care my looks you mark,

That to each word, nay sigh of mine you hark,

As grudging me my sorrow's eloquence?

Ah, is it not enough that I am thence?

Thence, so far thence, that scarcely any spark

Of comfort dare come to this dungeon dark,

Where rigorous exile locks up all my sense?

But if I by a happy window pass,

If I but stars upon mine armor bear

--Sick, thirsty, glad (though but of empty glass):

Your moral notes straight my hid meaning tear

From out my ribs, and puffing prove that I

Do Stella love. Fools, who doth it deny?

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 104: Envious wits

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