Sir Philip Sidney. "Though dusty wits do scorn astrology." Sonnet 26 from "Astrophil and Stella."

Sir Philip Sidney.

Astrophel and Stella

Sonnet XXVI

Though dusty wits do scorn astrology,
And fools can think those lamps of purest light,
Whose numbers, ways, greatness, eternity,
Promising wonders, wonder do invite,
To have for no cause birthright in the sky
But for to spangle the black weeds of night;
Or for some brawl which in that chamber high
They should still dance to please a gazer's sight:
For me, I do Nature unidle know,
And know great causes great effects procure;
And know those bodies high reign on the low.
And if these rules did fail, proof makes me sure,
Who oft fore-judge my after-following race,
By only those two stars in Stella's face.

Source:
A Sixteenth Century Anthology. Arthur Symons, Ed.
London: Blackie & Son, Ltd., 1905. 149.

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