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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