Come, come, and let me pour myself on thee!
Gone is the winter of my misery ;

My spring appears, O see what here doth grow!
For Stella hath, in words where faith doth shine,
Of her high heart given me the monarchy:
I, I, Oh! I may say that she is mine!

And though she give but this conditionally,

This realm of bliss, while virtuous course I take, No kings be crowned, but they some covenants make!

Sonnet 71.

Who will in fairest book of nature know,
How virtue may best lodged in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines, which true goodness shew;
There shall he find all vice's overthrow,

Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly
That inward sun in thine eyes shining so.
And not content to be perfection's heir

Thyself-dost strive all minds that way to move: Who mark in thee, what is in thee most fair; So while thy beauty draws the heart to love, As fast thy virtue bends that love to good; But, ah! desire still cries, give me some food.

Sonnet 72.

Desire, though thou my old companion art,
And oft so clingst to my pure love, that I
One from the other scarcely can descry,
While each doth blow the fire of my heart;
Now from thy fellowship I needs must part;
Venus is taught with Dian's wings to fly :
I must no more in thy sweet passions lie;

Virtue's gold now must head my Cupid's dart.
Service and honour, wonder with delight,

Fear to offend, well worthy to appear, Care shining in mine eyes, faith in my sp❜rite: These things are left me by my only dear; But thou, desire, because thou would'st have all, Now banished art; but yet, alas! how shall?

To what little purpose the following Song directly shews:

Have I caught my heavenly jewel
Teaching sleep most fair to be?
Now will 1 teach her that she,
When she waketh is too cruel,

Since sweet sleep her eyes hath charm'd-
The two only darts of love :—
Now will I with that boy prove

Some play while he is disarm'd.

Her tongue, waking, still refuseth,
Giving frankly niggard No;

Now will I attempt to know,
What No her tongue, sleeping, useth.

See the hand which waking guardeth;
Sleeping grants a free resort;

Now will I invade the fort;
Cowards love with loss rewardeth.

But O fool! think of the danger

Of her just and high disdain :
Now will I, alas! refrain!

Love fears nothing else but anger.

Yet those lips so sweetly swelling,
Do invite a stealing kiss;

Now will I but venture this!

Who will read must first learn spelling.

Oh! sweet kiss! but ah! she's waking;
Lowering beauty chastens me:

Now will I away hence flee;

Fool! more fool! for no more taking.

This stolen kiss fills the poet with raptures, which he expresses in several Sonnets, the following is perhaps the best.

Sonnet 81.

O kiss! which dost those ruddy gems impart,
Or gems, or fruits of new-found Paradise,
Breathing all bliss and sweet'ning to the heart,
Teaching dumb lips a nobler exercise.
O kiss! which souls, even souls, together ties
By links of love, and only nature's art:
How fain would I paint thee in all men's eyes,

Or of thy gifts, at least, shade out some part?
But she forbids; with blushing words, she says
She builds her fame on higher seated praise:
But my heart burns, I cannot silent be.
Then since, dear life, you fain would have me peace,
And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease,
Stop you my mouth, with still still kissing me!

In the midst of these raptures, the following, Alas! is found.

Sonnet 78.

Oh! how the pleasant airs of true love be
Infected by those vapours, which arise
From out that noisome gulf, which gaping lies

Between the jaws of hellish jealousy!
A monster, others harm, self-misery,

Beauty's plague, virtue's scourge, seeker of lies;
Who his own joy to his own hurt applies,
And only cherish doth with injury.

But since he hath by nature's special grace,
So piercing paws, as spoil when they embrace;
So nimble feet as stir not, but on thorns;
So many eyes, aye seeking their own woe;
So ample ears, as never good news know;

Is it not evil that such a devil wants horns?

There is no doubt but that the allusion in this Sonnet is to Lord Rich, the husband of Stella, who had probably contracted some feelings of jealousy from the intercourse between Sidney and his wife.

The lady resents the liberty taken with her person, when sleeping, but as the offence was venial, so her anger was apparently slight, and of short duration.— Sidney alludes to it as follows:—

And yet my star, because a sugar'd kiss

In sport I suck'd, while she asleep did lie, Doth low'r, nay chide, nay threat, for only this; Sweet, it was saucy love, not humble I.

[Sonnet 73.]

The Poet's passion was however too real to be confined within the bounds prescribed to it; success and pardon make him bold. Two Songs follow, which we forbear to quote: these produce

Sonnet 86.

Alas! whence came this change of looks?—if I Have chang'd desert, let mine own conscience be A still-felt plague, to self-condemning me⚫

L

Let woe gripe on my heart, shame load mine eye!
But if all faith, like spotless ermine lie

Safe in my soul, which only doth to thee,-
As his sole object of felicity,-

With wings of love, in air of wonder fly!

O ease your hand, treat not so hard your slave;
In justice pains come not, till faults do call,
Or if I needs, sweet judge, must torments have,
Use something else to chasten me withall,
Than those blest eyes, where all my hopes do dwel!
No doom should make one's heaven become his hell

The Poet now complains of absence, and we have the following:

Sonnet 87.

When I was forced from Stella ever dear,

Stella! food of my thoughts, heart of my heart; Stella! whose eyes make all my tempests clear, By iron laws of duty to depart;

Alas! I found that she with me did smart;
I saw that tears did in her eyes appear;

I saw that sighs her sweetest lips did part,
And her sad words, my saddest sense did hear:
For me, I wept to see pearls scattered so,
I sighed her sighs, and wailed for her woe,

Yet swam in joy, such love in her was seen.
Thus while the effect most bitter was to me,
And nothing than the cause more sweet could be,
I had been vexed, if vexed I had not been.
Several good Sonnets follow, chiefly lamenting this
temporary absence; when in tracing the history of the
Poet's passion, the following dialogue arrests our atten-
tion, and probably explains the cause of the absence

bewailed.