 | The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney |  |
237
[O sweet woods the delight of solitarines!]
O sweet woods the delight of solitarines!
O how much I do like your solitarines!
Where mans mind hath a freed consideration
Of goodnes to receive lovely direction.
Where senses do behold th'order of heav'nly hoste,
And wise thoughts do behold what the creator is:
Contemplation here holdeth his only seate:
Bownded with no limitts, borne with a wing of hope
Clymes even unto the starres, Nature is under it.
Nought disturbs thy quiet, all to thy service yeelds
Each sight draws on a thought, thought mother of science,
Sweet birds kindly do graunt harmony unto thee,
Faire trees shade is enough fortification,
Nor danger to thy selfe if be not in thy selfe.
O how much I do like your solitarines!
Where mans mind hath a freed consideration
Of goodnes to receive lovely direction.
Where senses do behold th'order of heav'nly hoste,
And wise thoughts do behold what the creator is:
Contemplation here holdeth his only seate:
Bownded with no limitts, borne with a wing of hope
Clymes even unto the starres, Nature is under it.
Nought disturbs thy quiet, all to thy service yeelds
Each sight draws on a thought, thought mother of science,
Sweet birds kindly do graunt harmony unto thee,
Faire trees shade is enough fortification,
Nor danger to thy selfe if be not in thy selfe.
O sweete woods the delight of solitarines!
O how much I do like your solitarines!
Here nor treason is hidd, vailed in innocence,
Nor envies snaky ey, finds any harbor here,
Nor flatterers venomous insinuations,
Nor comming humorists puddled opinions,
Nor courteous ruin of proffered usury,
Nor time pratled away, cradle of ignorance,
Nor causelesse duty, nor comber of arrogance,
Nor trifling title of vanity dazleth us,
Nor golden manacles, stand for a paradise,
Here wrongs name is unheard: slander a monster is
Keepe thy sprite from abuse, here no abuse doth haunte.
What man grafts in a tree dissimulation?
O how much I do like your solitarines!
Here nor treason is hidd, vailed in innocence,
Nor envies snaky ey, finds any harbor here,
Nor flatterers venomous insinuations,
Nor comming humorists puddled opinions,
Nor courteous ruin of proffered usury,
Nor time pratled away, cradle of ignorance,
Nor causelesse duty, nor comber of arrogance,
Nor trifling title of vanity dazleth us,
Nor golden manacles, stand for a paradise,
Here wrongs name is unheard: slander a monster is
Keepe thy sprite from abuse, here no abuse doth haunte.
What man grafts in a tree dissimulation?
O sweete woods the delight of solitarines!
O how well I do like your solitarines!
Yet deare soile, if a soule closed in a mansion
As sweete as violetts, faire as lilly is,
Streight as Cedar, a voice staines the Cannary birds,
Whose shade safely doth hold, danger avoideth her:
Such wisedome, that in her lives speculation:
Such goodnes that in her simplicitie triumphs:
Where envies snaky ey, winketh or els dyeth,
Slander wants a pretext, flattery gone beyond:
Oh! if such a one have bent, to a lonely life,
Her stepps gladd we receave, gladd we receave her eys.
And thinke not she doth hurt our solitarines,
For such company decks such solitarines.
O how well I do like your solitarines!
Yet deare soile, if a soule closed in a mansion
As sweete as violetts, faire as lilly is,
Streight as Cedar, a voice staines the Cannary birds,
Whose shade safely doth hold, danger avoideth her:
Such wisedome, that in her lives speculation:
Such goodnes that in her simplicitie triumphs:
Where envies snaky ey, winketh or els dyeth,
238
Oh! if such a one have bent, to a lonely life,
Her stepps gladd we receave, gladd we receave her eys.
And thinke not she doth hurt our solitarines,
For such company decks such solitarines.
| The Complete Works of Sir Philip Sidney | |