Delia VI
Delia VI
Original Text
Samuel Daniel, Delia. Contayning certayne sonnets: with the complaint of Rosamond (J. C. for S. Waterson, 1592). STC 6243.5. Facs. edn.: Scolar Press, 1969. PR 2464 D4 1592A ROBA.
2Her brow shades frowns although her eyes are sunny,
3Her smiles are lightning though her pride despair,
4And her disdains are gall, her favours honey;
5A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,
6Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love,
7The wonder of all eyes that look upon her:
8Sacred on earth, design'd a saint above.
9Chastity and beauty, which were deadly foes,
10Live reconciled friends within her brow;
11And had she pity to conjoin with those,
12Then who had heard the plaints I utter now?
13For had she not been fair and thus unkind,
14My muse had slept, and none had known my mind.
Notes
1] A sequence of fifty sonnets and a concluding ode, first printed from an authorized MS. in 1592. During the previous year, several of the poems had been printed surreptitiously in an appendix to Sidney's Astrophel and Stella. Later, Daniel revised and "augmented" the series several times, removing (so it seems to us) some of the Elizabethan flavour. Representative Poetry follows the text and numbering of the 1592 quarto, but for Sonnet 31 provides two versions, those of 1592 and 1623 (Daniel's last), so that students can examine from a single sample the nature of Daniel's revisions. It is probable that by "Delia," Daniel intended his patroness, the Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister, for not only was the first edition dedicated to her as "the happy and judicial patroness of the Muses, a glory hereditary to your house," but he also refers in the 48th sonnet to Avon, "where Delia hath her seat." The Avon (not that of Stratford!) dows through the Wilton estate near Salisbury, the seat of the Pembroke family. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1592
RPO poem Editors
F. D. Hoeniger
RPO Edition
3RP 1.124.
Rhyme
Form