Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONNET: 23. TO THE TUNE OF WILHELMUS VAN NASSOUWE, by PHILIP SIDNEY


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SONNET: 23. TO THE TUNE OF WILHELMUS VAN NASSOUWE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Who hath his fancy pleased
Last Line: On nature's sweetest light.
Variant Title(s): Immortality;song
Subject(s): Immortality


Who hath his fancy pleased
With fruits of happy sight,
Let here his eyes be raised
On nature's sweetest light:
A light which doth dissever
And yet unite the eyes,
A light which, dying never,
Is cause the looker dies.

She never dies, but lasteth
In life of lover's heart;
He ever dies, that wasteth
In love his chiefest part.
Thus is her life still guarded
In never dying faith;
Thus is his death rewarded,
Since she lives in his death.

Look then, and die; the pleasure
Doth answer well the pain;
Small loss of mortal treasure,
Who may immortal gain.
Immortal be her graces,
Immortal is her mind;
They fit for heavenly places,
This heaven in it doth bind.

But eyes those beauties see not,
Nor sense that grace descries;
Yet eyes deprived be not
From sight of her fair eyes;
Which, as of inward glory
They are the outward seal,
So may they live still sorry
Which die not in that weal.

But who hath fancies pleased
With fruits of happy sight
Let here his eyes be raised
On nature's sweetest light.





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