Astrophil and Stella
Sonnet 71
Who will in fairest booke of nature know
How virtue may best lodged in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly,
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And, not content to be perfection's heir
Thy self, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair:
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy virtue bends that love to good:
But, ah, desire still cries, give me some food.
Sir Philip Sidney
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