Sonnet VI: Some Lovers Speak

Sir Philip Sidney 1554 (Penshurst, Kent) – 1586 (Zutphen)



Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain,
Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires:
Of force of heav'nly beams, infusing hellish pain:
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires.

Some one his song in Jove, and Jove's strange tales attires,
Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain;
Another humbler wit to shepherd's pipe retires,
Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein.

To some a sweetest plaint a sweetest style affords,
While tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his words:
His paper pale despair, and pain his pen doth move.

I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they,
But think that all the map of my state I display,
When trembling voice brings forth that I do Stella love.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
88

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB BAXA XXX CCX
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 762
Words 138
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3

Sir Philip Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier, scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. more…

All Sir Philip Sidney poems | Sir Philip Sidney Books

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