Love's Astrology "Of Fellowship, O Moon Stella's Enriching Name "Rich": A Lover's "Riddle" in Rhyme. Invocation to Sleep Through Stella's Glance Stella's Eyes "Those Morning Stars" PAGE 5 The Lover "cannot choose but write" He sees his Shame in Stella's Blush Cupid's "Right Badge" worn only in the Heart Give Passion leave Stella's Kiss Pardon, Sweet Nymph Say all" Stella Sick On seeing the Winds playing with Stella's Hair Basilius'"Love-Complaint 22 22 23 24 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 21 21 Prefatory Note THIS little volume has been compiled in the hope that it will supply-in some measure, at any rate-what is unquestionably a felt need. For though the name of Sir Philip Sidney is as familiar in the ears of Englishmen "as household words," and he himself deservedly honoured as one of the most chivalrous and romantic figures in our country's history; and though his reputation as a writer of graceful and "poetic" prose is sufficiently well established, it cannot be said that his verse has yet received the recognition which is its due. True, anthologists have familiarised the general reader with a few of the more notable of the Astrophel and Stella sonnets, while at least one other poem of Sidney's, in quasi-sonnet form-the exquisite lines from the Arcadia, commencing, "My true love hath my heart"-has taken its place among the most beautiful of our national songs. Still, the bulk of Sidney's verse-and in particular the lyrical part of it-is known to comparatively few save the lovers of that glorious legacy which Elizabethan England bequeathed to us three centuries ago. It may be that Astrophel and Stella has suffered-in regard to later appreciation of its beauty and its power-by reason of those very characteristics which stamp it as so distinctive a product of its writer and its age-its closely imitative quality; its burden of poetical "conceits"; its author's fondness for the "swelling phrase"; its aloofness from the more humanising realities of the ordinary lover's passion; and the further fact of its kinship in style and literary character with the Arcadia. Nevertheless, it remains true that Sidney has yet to come into the poetical kingdom that is his by every literary and artistic right. Of the story commonly supposed to be unfolded in the famous sonnet-sequence which has been so largely laid under contribution in the accompanying selection, and which takes rank second only to the greatest of that splendid Elizabethan line, it is not the place here to speak in detail. Regarding with disfavour, as the present editor does, the theory of the serious and intimately autobiographical significance of these poems, of which so much has been made by many latter-day writers, he has not scrupled, where necessary, to separate them from their context, and to let each sonnet speak for itself under a title of his own devising. In the case also of the majority of the remaining pieces, it may be remarked, the titles are the present writer's own. He trusts, however, that the liberty he has thus taken may not be regarded as in any sense derogatory to the genius of the maker of the poems themselves. Mary Sidney, whose name has come down to us inextricably intertwined with that of her illustrious and devoted brother, is represented by her two extant original productions in verse. Apart from her memorable association with Sir Philip in regard to the latter's famous pastoral romance, and to their joint authorship of a metrical version of the Psalter; apart, moreover, from the loveliness of her own character,Mary Sidney merits grateful recognition and remembrance as a bountiful and disinterested patroness of poets-among whom was the writer represented in the concluding section of this booklet-and as, in point of time, the first English authoress of repute. The trio enumerated on our title-page is completed by the name of Matthew Roydon (A. 1588-1622), a writer of no little distinction in his day, whose Elegy -given here in its entirety, notwithstanding its unequal character, though usually represented in quotation by a few of the more musical and smoothly-flowing of its stanzas-was one of the most notable contributions to that rich stream of obituary verse which flowed in so full a flood from Zutphen's battlefield, and which Spenser himself augmented with his own melodious lament for the beloved and much-mourned "Astrophel." ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE, H. KELSEY WHITE. August 1905. |