Uploaded on July 20, 2011
Be your words made, good Sir, of Indian ware,
that you allow me them by so small rate?
Or do you cutted Spartans imitate?
Or do you mean my tender ears to spare
that to my questions you so total are?
When I demand of Phoenix Stella’s state,
you say, forsooth, you left her well of late:
O G–, think you that satisfies my care?
I would know whether she did sit or walk;
how clothed; how waited on; sighed she or smiled;
whereof, with whom, how often did she talk;
with what pastime time’s journey she beguiled;
if her lips deigned to sweeten my poor name:
say all; and, all well said, still say the same.
—Sir Philip Sidney
The Giant Book of Poetry
edited by William H. Roetzheim
07.20.2023: This piece in my mother’s collection of china and such is rather unique. I wonder where she got it, as it doesn’t seem to fit with everything else. It must have been a gift she felt compelled to hold onto.