RPO -- Sir Philip Sidney : Astrophel and Stella XV

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

Astrophel and Stella XV

1You that do search for every purling spring

2Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows,

3And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows

4Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring;

5Ye that do dictionary's method bring

6Into your rimes, running in rattling rows;

7You that poor Petrarch's long-deceased woes

8With new-born sighs and denizen'd wit do sing:

9You take wrong ways; those far-fet helps be such

10As do bewray a want of inward touch,

11And sure, at length stol'n goods do come to light.

12But if, both for your love and skill, your name

13You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame,

14Stella behold, and then begin to endite.

Notes

7] Petrarch's long-deceased woes. Francesco Petrarca (1304-74) is best known by the sonnets in which he celebrates his hopeless passion for Laura. These sonnets were models for most sixteenth-century sonnetteers.

8] denizen'd: admitted to residence in a foreign country; the opposite to native, and by implication to "natural."

9] far-fet: far-fetched.

10] touch: tact, perception.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Sir Philip Sidney, Sir P. S. his Astrophel and Stella ([J. Charlewood] for T. Newman, 1591). STC 22536. Facs. edn.: Menston: Scolar Press, 1970. PR 2342 A7 1591A ROBA.
First publication date: 1591
RPO poem editor: F. D. Hoeniger
RP edition: 3RP 1:119.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/11

Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaabbaccdeed

Other poems by Sir Philip Sidney