Astrophil and Stella
Sonnet 24
Rich fools there be whose base and filthy heart
Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow,
And damning their own selves to Tantal's smart,
Wealth breeding want; more rich, more wretched grow:
Yet to those fools heaven doth such wit impart
As what their hands do hold, their heads do know,
And knowing love, and loving lay apart
As sacred things, far from all dangers show.
But that rich fool, who by blind fortune's lot
The richest gem of love and life enioys,
And can with foul abuse such beauties blot;
Let him, deprived of sweet but unfelt joys,
Exiled for aye from those high treasures which
He knows not, grow in only folly rich!
Sir Philip Sidney
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