Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Astrophel and Stella

XXXVIII. This night, while sleep begins with heavy wings

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

THIS night, while sleep begins with heavy wings

To hatch mine eyes, and that unbitted thought

Doth fall to stray; and my chief powers are brought

To leave the sceptre of all subject things:

The first that straight my fancy’s error brings

Unto my mind, is STELLA’s image; wrought

By LOVE’s own self, but with so curious draught,

That she, methinks, not only shines but sings:

I start! look! hark! but what in closed up sense

Was held, in open sense it flies away;

Leaving me nought but wailing eloquence.

I, seeing better sights in sight’s decay;

Called it anew, and wooed sleep again:

But him her host, that unkind guest had slain.