destroyed: “In vaine thou kindlest all thy smokie fi re”
(l. 11). These lines show growth as the poet construes
his struggles as a battle between himself and fancy (i.e.,
both fancifulness and an amorous inclination). In the
fi nal three lines of the sonnet, the poet recommits to a
new life shaped around virtue’s lesson (ll. 12–14). This
teaches him to keep his own counsel and to stifl e
desire—“Desiring nought but how to kill desire” (l.
14)—thus changing direction from the pursuit of the
fanciful to the achievement of higher things.
See also CERTAIN SONNETS (OVERVIEW).
Christine Gilmore
Certain Sonnets 32: “Leave me, O Love” SIR
PHILIP SIDNEY (1581) In this poem from SIR PHILIP
SIDNEY’s Certain Sonnets, the speaker rejects human,
temporal, impermanent love in favor of eternal love—
the love for and of God. It is the most explicitly Chris-
tian, as well as the most specifi cally biblical of all
Sidney’s SONNETs. Thematically, it completes the col-
lection because it complements part of the fi rst sonnet,
which reads: “I yeeld, ô Love, unto thy loathed yoke
.. .” (Certain Sonnets 1.9). Sidney redefi nes love’s
“yoke,” and shifts his speaker’s allegiance from the lord
of [courtly] love to the Lord of all Love.
Sidney rarely uses explicit references to any source
texts, so specifi c references to the gospel and psalms
passages mark this sonnet as unique among his secular
writings, putting it more in line with the Psalms that
Sidney translated with his sister, MARY SIDNEY HERBERT,
COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (1561–1621), and with the
general Protestant cast of his overall literary and politi-
cal character. This sonnet produces a mood not typical
of Sidney’s writing; it is absent in the SONNET SEQUENCE
ASTROPHIL AND STELLA, in the two versions of the Arca-
dia, and rare in his prose works.
Structurally, Sonnet 32 is a variation of the ENGLISH
SONNET; it has three quatrains, each with its own pair of
rhyme sounds, and an ending COUPLET. The structural
logic, however, reads better as an ITALIAN (PETRARCHAN)
SONNET—that is, as two quatrains making an OCTAVE
with a SESTET, since the couplet completes, rather than
contrasts with, the preceding four lines. Unlike a typi-
cal English sonnet, Sidney utilizes an interlocking
rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, dd, and all the rhymes are
masculine (accented). This sonnet shows Sidney at his
mature best. The iambic pentameter is consistent, and
its rhythms are emphasized by the ALLITERATION used
only in the fi rst quatrain; other devices are employed
in the remaining 10 lines.
As the sonnet opens, the speaker commands the
impermanent, mortal love that reaches “but to dust” (l.
1) to leave him, and urges his mind to reach up for
more elevated, important, and permanent heavenly
love. Sidney alludes to Matthew 6:19–20, contrasting
that which moth and rust consume—all material pos-
sessions and human affections—with that which nei-
ther moth nor rust can consume—heaven and divine
love. Fleeting, mortal, ephemeral things give only
momentary joy or satisfaction.
In the second quatrain, the speaker urges himself to
pull in the sun of his personality (“beames”), to become
humble, to yield his power, pride, and talent to “that
sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms be” (l. 6). This
image owes its power to Matthew, chapter 11, where
Jesus urges his followers to take up the yoke of follow-
ing him, calling it a light, easy burden. The last two
lines of the STANZA refl ect a psalm verse that says
humans see light in God’s light (Ps. 36.9).
In the fi nal six lines, the speaker urges himself to
hold tightly to the light of salvation that can guide the
living person through the course of mortal life to a
happy conclusion in heaven. The speaker condemns
any who “slide.” Since each “comes of heavn’ly breath,”
it is a principal human obligation to reject the claims of
impermanent things in favor of “Eternall Love.” The
speaker concludes by asking eternal love to maintain
its life in him.
Critics have been quick to pick up on this tonal
shift. A great deal of scholarship contextualizes this
sonnet within the burgeoning Protestant state as well
as Sidney’s own troubled political career. As well, it
can be connected to the SIDNEIAN PSALMES begun by
Sidney and fi nished by his sister after his death.
See also CERTAIN SONNETS (OVERVIEW).
Marjory E. LangeCHARLES D’ORLÉANS See FORTUNES STA-
BILNES.CHARLES D’ORLÉANS 109