Ring Out Your Bells
Ring Out Your Bells
Original Text
Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia (1598). Facs. edn. (Delma: Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints, 1983). PR 2342 A5 1983
2For Love is dead--
3 All love is dead, infected
4With plague of deep disdain;
5 Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
6And Faith fair scorn doth gain.
7 From so ungrateful fancy,
9 From them that use men thus,
10 Good Lord, deliver us!
11Weep, neighbours, weep; do you not hear it said
12That Love is dead?
13 His death-bed, peacock's folly;
14His winding-sheet is shame;
15 His will, false-seeming holy;
16His sole exec'tor, blame.
17 From so ungrateful fancy,
18 From such a female franzy,
19 From them that use men thus,
20 Good Lord, deliver us!
22For Love is dead;
23 Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
24My mistress' marble heart,
25 Which epitaph containeth,
26"Her eyes were once his dart."
27 From so ungrateful fancy,
28 From such a female franzy,
29 From them that use men thus,
30 Good Lord, deliver us!
31Alas, I lie, rage hath this error bred;
32Love is not dead;
33 Love is not dead, but sleepeth
34In her unmatched mind,
35 Where she his counsel keepeth,
36Till due desert she find.
37 Therefore from so vile fancy,
38 To call such wit a franzy,
39 Who Love can temper thus,
40 Good Lord, deliver us!
Notes
1] Reprinted in England's Helcion (1600), with the title "Astrophel's love is dead." British Library Add. MS. 28,253 contains the poem with a note that it was given to the compiler on December 10, 1584. Back to Line
8] franzy: frenzy. Back to Line
21] trentals: masses for the dead. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1598
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
2RP.1.177; RPO 1996-2000.
Rhyme