Sir Philip Sidney(1554–1586)
Ring Out Your Bells
Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread,
For Love is dead.
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain;
Worth as naught worth rejected,
And Faith fair scorn2 doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy,
From such a female franzy,frenzy
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Weep, neighbors, weep; do you not hear it said
That Love is dead
His deathbed peacock's folly,3
His winding sheet4 is shame,
His will false-seeming holy,
His sole exec'tor blame.
From so ungrateful fancy, . . .
Let dirge be sung and trentals5 rightly read,
For Love is dead.
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress, marble heart,
Which epitaph containeth,
"Her eyes were once his dart.
From so ungrateful fancy, . . .
Alas, I lie, rage hath this error bred;
Love is not dead.
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatched mind,
Where she his counsel keepeth,
Till due desert 0 she find. reward
Therefore from so vile fancy,
To call such wit a franzy,
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
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FRM ASTRPHIL AND STELLA 6