Philip Sidney

Sonnet 60. When My Good Angel Guides Me

When my good angel guides me to the place,
Where all my good I do in Stella see,
That heav'n of joys throws only down on me
Thunder'd disdains and lightnings of disgrace:

But when the rugg'st step of Fortune's race
Makes me fall from her sight, then sweetly she
With words, wherein the Muses' treasures be,
Shows love and pity to my absent case.

Now I, wit-beaten long by hardest Fate,
So dull am, that I cannot look into
The ground of this fierce Love and lovely hate:

Then some good body tell me how I do,
Whose presence absence, absence presence is;
Blist in my curse, and cursed in my bliss.