Astrophil and Stella
Sonnet 48
Soul's joy, bend not those morning stars from me
Where virtue is made strong by beauty's might;
Where love is chasteness, pain doth learn delight,
And humbleness grows one with majesty.
Whatever may ensue, O let me be
Copartner of the riches of that sight.
Let not mine eyes be hell driven from that light;
O look, O shine, O let me die, and see.
For though I oft myself of them bemoan
That through my heart their beamy darts be gone,
Whose cureless wounds even now most freshly bleed,
Yet since my death-wound is already got,
Dear killer, spare not thy sweet-cruel shot:
A kind of grace it is to slay with speed.
Sir Philip Sidney
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