Sonnet 102: Wher Be Those Roses Gone

Sir Philip Sidney 1554 (Penshurst, Kent) – 1586 (Zutphen)



Where be those roses gone, which sweeten'd so our eyes?
Where those red cheeks, which oft with fair increase did frame
The height of honor in the kindly badge of shame?
Who hath the crimson weeds stol'n from my morning skies?

How did the color fade of those vermilion dyes
Which Nature self did make, and self engrain'd the same?
I would know by what right this paleness overcame
That hue, whose force my heart still unto thraldom ties.

Galen's adoptive sons, who by a beaten way
Their judgments hackney on, the fault of sickness lay,
But feeling proof makes me say they mistake it furre:

It is but Love, which makes his paper perfect white
To write therein more fresh the story of delight,
While Beauty's reddest ink Venus for him doth stir.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
127

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBA ABBA CCD EED
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 748
Words 136
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 3, 3

Sir Philip Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier, scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. more…

All Sir Philip Sidney poems | Sir Philip Sidney Books

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