XCIV. Grief! find the words! For thou hast made my brain

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

GRIEF! find the words! For thou hast made my brain

So dark with misty vapours, which arise

From out thy heavy mould, that inbent eyes

Can scarce discern the shape of mine own pain.

Do thou then (for thou canst!) do thou complain

For my poor soul! which now that sickness tries:

Which even to sense, sense of itself denies,

Though harbingers of death lodge there his train.

Or if thy love of plaint yet mine forbears—

As of a caitiff worthy so to die—

Yet wail thyself! and wail with causefull tears!

That though in wretchedness thy life doth lie;

Yet grow’st more wretched than thy nature bears,

By being placed in such a wretch as I!