lic is;
I mean the hand, which is the reason why
So many for devotion thee would kiss:
And some thy glove kiss as a thing divine,
This arrows' quiver, and this relic's shrine.

X

_Of his lady's going over early to bed, so depriving him too soon of her
sight_

Fair sun, if you would have me praise your light,
When night approacheth wherefore do you fly?
Time is so short, beauties so many be,
As I have need to see them day and night,
That by continual view my verses might
Tell all the beams of your divinity;
Which praise to you and joy should be to me,
You living by my verse, I by your sight;
I by your sight, and not you by my verse,
Need mortal skill immortal praise rehearse?
No, no, though eyes were blind, and verse were dumb,
Your beauty should be seen and your fame known;
For by the wind which from my sighs do come,
Your praises round about the world are blown.

THE THIRD DECADE

I

_Complaint of his lady's sickness_

Uncivil sickness, hast thou no regard,
But dost presume my dearest to molest,
And without leave dar'st enter in that breast
Whereto sweet love approach yet never dared?
Spare thou her health, which my life hath not spared;
Too bitter such revenge of my unrest!
Although with wrongs my thought she hath opprest,
My wrongs seek not revenge, they crave reward
Cease, sickness, cease in her then to remain;
And come and welcome, harbour thou in me
Whom love long since hath taught to suffer in!
So she which hath so oft my pain increased,
O God, that I might so revenged be,
By my poor pain might have her pain released!

[The Sonnets numbered II to VIII in this Decade are by Sidney, and were
printed among the _Certaine Sonets_ in the 1598 edition of the
_Arcadia_.]

IX

Woe to mine eyes, the organs of mine ill;
Hate to my heart, for not concealing joy;
A double curse upon my tongue be still,
Whose babbling lost what else I might enjoy!
When first mine eyes did with thy beauty joy,
They to my heart thy wondrous virtues told;
Who, fearing lest thy beams should him destroy,
Whate'er he knew, did to my tongue unfold.
My tell-tale tongue, in talking over bold,
What they in private council did declare,
To thee, in plain and public terms unrolled;
A