XXII. Oft have I mused, but now at length I find

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

A Farewell

[First printed in Constable’s Diana, 1594.]

OFT have I mused, but now at length I find

Why those that die, men say, “they do depart.”

“Depart!” A word so gentle, to my mind,

Weakly did seem to paint death’s ugly dart.

But now the stars, with their strange course do bind

Me one to leave, with whom I leave my heart:

I hear a cry of spirits, faint and blind,

That parting thus, my chiefest part, I part.

Part of my life, the loathed part to me,

Lives to impart my weary clay some breath:

But that good part, wherein all comforts be,

Now dead, doth show departure is a death.

Yea, worse than death! Death parts both woe and joy.

From joy I part, still living in annoy.