Sir Philip Sidney. "I never drank of Aganippe well." Sonnet 74 from "Astrophil and Stella."

Sir Philip Sidney.

Astrophel and Stella

LXXIV

I never drank of Aganippe well,
Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit,
And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell:
Poor layman I, for sacred rites unfit.
Some do I hear of poets' Fury tell,
But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it;
And this I swear, by blackest brook of hell,
I am no pick-purse of another's wit.
How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease
My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth flow
In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please?
Guess we the cause: 'What, is it thus?' Fie, no;
'Or so?' Much less. 'How then?' Sure, thus it is:
My lips are sweet, inspired with Stella's kiss.

Brooks-Davies, Douglas, Ed. Silver Poets of the Sixteenth Century.
London: J. M Dent & Sons Ltd., 1992. 261.

to Works of Sir Philip Sidney