To Maister Hugh Holland.
O sweet woods the delight of solitarinesse,
O how much doe I loue your solitarinesse.
From fames desire, from loues delight retir'd,
In these sad groues an Hermits life I led,
And those false pleasures which I once admir'd,
With sad remembrance of my fall, I dread,
To birds, to trees, to earth impart I this,
For thee lesse secret and as sencelesse is.
Experience which repentance onely brings,
Doth bid mee now my hart from loue estrange,
Loue is disdained when it doth looke at Kings,
And loue loe placed base and apt to change :
Then power doth take from him his liberty,
Hir want of worth makes him in cradell die.
O sweet woods ,&c.
O how much ,&c.
You men that giue false worship vnto Loue,
And seeke that which you neuer shall obtaine,
The endlesse worke od Sisiphus you procure,
Whose end is this to know you striue in vaine,
Hope and desire which now your Idols bee,
You needs must loose and feele dispaire with mee.
O sweet woods ,&c.
O how much ,&c.
You woods in you the fairest Nimphs haue walked,
Nimphes at whose sight all harts did yeeld to Loue,
You woods in whom deere louers oft haue talked,
How doe you now a place of mourning proue,
Wansted my Mistres saith this is the doome,
Thou art loues Childbed, Nursery, and Tombe.
O sweet woods ,&c.
O how much ,&c.
words by:
Sir Philip Sidney