Sonnet 108: When Sorrow

When sorrow (using mine own fire's might)

Melts down his lead into my boiling breast;

Through that dark furnace to my heart oppress'd

There shines a joy from thee, my only light;

But soon as thought of thee breeds my delight,

And my young soul flutters to thee his nest,

Most rude despair, my daily unbidden guest,

Clips straight my wings, straight wraps me in his night,

And makes me then bow down my head and say,

"Ah, what doth Phoebus' gold that wretch avail

Whom iron doors do keep from use of day?"

So strangely (alas) thy works in me prevail,

That in my woes for thee thou art my joy,

And in my joys for thee my only annoy.

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 108: When Sorrow

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