Ode ( When, To My Deadly Pleasure )

Sir Philip Sidney

When, to my deadly pleasure,
When to my lively torment,
Lady, mine eyes remained
Joined, alas! to your beams.

With violence of heavenly
Beauty, tied to virtue;
Reason abashed retired;
Gladly my senses yielded.

Gladly my senses yielding,
Thus to betray my heart’s fort,
Left me devoid of all life.

They to the beamy suns went,
Where, by the death of all deaths,
Find to what harm they hastened.

Like to the silly Sylvan,
Burned by the light he best liked,
When with a fire he first met.

Yet, yet, a life to their death,
Lady you have reserved;
Lady the life of all love.

For though my sense be from me,
And I be dead, who want sense,
Yet do we both live in you.

Turned anew, by your means,
Unto the flower that aye turns,
As you, alas! my sun bends.

Thus do I fall to rise thus;
Thus do I die to live thus;
Changed to a change, I change not.

Thus may I not be from you;
Thus be my senses on you;
Thus what I think is of you;
Thus what I seek is in you;
All what I am, it is you.

Next 10 Poems

• Sir Philip Sidney : Philomela
• Sir Philip Sidney : Psalm 19: Coeli Enarrant
• Sir Philip Sidney : Ring Out Your Bells
• Sir Philip Sidney : Since Shunning Pain, I Ease Can Never Find
• Sir Philip Sidney : Sir Philip Sidney's Sonnet In Reply To A Sonnet By Sir Edward Dyer
• Sir Philip Sidney : Sleep
• Sir Philip Sidney : Song
• Sir Philip Sidney : Song From Arcadia
• Sir Philip Sidney : Song To The Tune Of 'basciami Vita Mia.'
• Sir Philip Sidney : Song To The Tune Of 'non Credo Gia Che Piu Infelice Amante.'

Previous 10 Poems

• Sir Philip Sidney : My True Love Hath My Heart, And I Have His
• Sir Philip Sidney : Must Love Lament?
• Sir Philip Sidney : Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show
• Sir Philip Sidney : Leave Me, O Love Which Reachest But To Dust
• Sir Philip Sidney : From Earth To Heaven
• Sir Philip Sidney : Dispraise Of A Courtly Life
• Sir Philip Sidney : Dirge
• Sir Philip Sidney : Come Sleep, O Sleep! The Certain Knot Of Peace
• Sir Philip Sidney : Astrophil And Stella-sonnet Cviii
• Sir Philip Sidney : Astrophel And Stella-sonnet Xxxi