Sir Philip Sidney. "Rich fools there be whose base and filthy heart." Sonnet 24 from "Astrophil and Stella."

Sir Philip Sidney.

Astrophel and Stella

Sonnet XXIV

Rich fools there be whose base and filthy heart
    Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow,
    And damning their own selves to Tantal's smart,
    Wealth breeding want, more blest, more wretched grow.
Yet to those fools heaven such wit doth impart,
    As what their hands do hold, their heads do know;
    And knowing, love; and loving, lay apart
    As sacred things, far from all danger's show.
But that rich fool, who by blind fortune's lot
    The richest gem of love and life enjoys,
    And can with foul abuse such beauties blot,
Let him, deprived of sweet but unfelt joys,
    Exiled for aye from those high treasures which
    He knows not, grow in only folly rich!

Source:
Poetry of the English Renaissance 1509-1660.
J. William Hebel and Hoyt H. Hudson, Eds.
New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1941. 109-110.

to Works of Sir Philip Sidney