Sir Philip Sidney. [Ring out your bells].

Sir Philip Sidney

CERTAIN SONNETS

[Ring out your bells]

Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread ;
For love is dead—
    All love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain ;
    Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And Faith fair scorn doth gain.
    From so ungrateful fancy,
    From such a female franzy,
    From them that use men thus,
    Good Lord, deliver us!

Weep, neighbours, weep ;  do you not hear it said
That Love is dead?
    His death-bed, peacock's folly ;
His winding-sheet is shame;
    His will, false-seeming holy ;
His sole exec'tor, blame.
    From so ungrateful, &c.

Let the dirge be sung and trentals rightly read,
For Love is dead ;
    Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress Marble-heart,
    Which epitaph containeth,
Her eyes were once his dart.
    From so ungrateful, &c.

Alas, I lie, rage hath this error bred ;
Love is not dead ;
    Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatchëd mind,
    Where she his counsel keepeth,
Till due desert she find.
    Therefore from so vile fancy,
    To call such wit a franzy,
    Who Love can temper thus,
    Good Lord, deliver us!

Source:
Poetry of the English Renaissance 1509-1660.
J. William Hebel and Hoyt H. Hudson, Eds.
New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1941. 119-120.

to Works of Sir Philip Sidney