Astrophil and Stella 49

By Sir Philip Sidney 1554–1586 Philip Sidney

I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try

Our horsemanships, while by strange work I prove

A horseman to my horse, a horse to Love,

And now man’s wrongs in me, poor beast, descry.

The reins wherewith my rider doth me tie

Are humbled thoughts, which bit of reverence move,

Curbed in with fear, but with glit boss above

Of hope, which makes it seem fair to the eye.

The wand is will; thou, fancy, saddle art,

Girt fast by memory; and while I spur

My horse, he spurs with sharp desire to my heart;

He sits me fast, however I do stir;

And now hath made me to his hand so right

That in the manage myself takes delight.

Biography

The grandson of the Duke of Northumberland and heir presumptive to the earls of Leicester and Warwick, Sir Philip Sidney was not himself a nobleman. Today he is closely associated in the popular imagination with the court of Elizabeth I, though he spent relatively little time at the English court, and until his appointment as governor of Flushing in 1585 received little preferment from Elizabeth. Viewed in his own age as the . . .

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