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Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

LXXXVII. When I was forced from Stella ever dear

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

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 wailèd for her woe:

Yet swam in joy; such love in her was seen.

Thus while th’effect most bitter was to me,

And nothing than the cause more sweet could be;

I had been vext, if vext I had not been.