of persisting in this unhappy passion.'

'Harm to her! Nay, I would die sooner than that harm should befall her
through me. I pray you, Mary, let us speak of other matters.' But though he
did begin to discuss the affairs of his father, and to beg Lady Pembroke to
advise his mother to be wary in what she urged when the Queen gave her an
interview, it was evident to his sister that his thoughts were in the
direction of his eyes, and that she could not hope to get from him the wise
advice as to her father's embarrassments which she had expected.

But the gently exercised influence of his pure and high-minded sister had
its effect, and long after the sounds of revelry had died away, and the
quiet of night had fallen upon the palace, there was one who could not
sleep.

Philip Sidney was restlessly pacing to and fro in the confined space of the
chamber allotted to him at Whitehall, and this sonnet, one of the most
beautiful which he ever wrote, will express better than any other words
what effect his sister's counsel had upon him.

'Leave me, oh! Love! which reachest but to dust,
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things,
Grow rich in that, which never taketh rust.
Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.

Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might,
To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms be,
Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.

Oh! take fast hold! let that light be thy guide
In this small course which birth draws out to Death,
And think how evil becometh him to slide
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.
Then farewell world, thy uttermost I see;
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me.'

The clouds were soon to break and the light shine upon the way in that
'small course' which yet lay before him.

We who can look onward to the few years yet left to Philip Sidney, and can
even now lament that they were so few, know how his aspirations were
abundantly fulfilled, and that Love Eternal did indeed maintain its life in
his noble and true heart.

CHAPTER VII

WHITSUNTIDE, 1581

'The greater stroke astonisheth the more;
Astonishment takes from us sense of pain;
I stood amazed when others' tears begun,
And now begin to weep, when they have done.'

HENRY CONSTABLE, 1586.

After Lucy's departure from Penshurst, Mary Giffor