Astrophel and Stella - Sonnet CII
By Philip Sidney (Sir)
Where be those roses gone, which sweetned so our eyes?
Where those red cheeks, which oft, with faire encrease, did frame
The height of honour in the kindly badge of shame?
Who hath the crimson weeds stolne from my morning skies?
How doth the colour vade of those vermilion dies,
Which Nature self did make, and self-ingrain'd the same?
I would know by what right this palenesse ouercame
That hue whose force my hart still vnto thraldome ties?
Galens adoptiue sonnes, who by a beaten way
Their iudgements hackney on, the fault of sicknesse lay;
But feeling proofe makes me say they mistake it furre:
It is but loue which makes this paper perfit white,
To write therein more fresh the storie of delight,
Whiles Beauties reddest inke Venus for him doth sturre.