With How Sad Steps, Oh Moon

With How Sad Steps, Oh Moon

With how sad steps, Oh Moon, thou climb'st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be that even in heav'nly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks: thy languished grace,
To me that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then even of fellowship, Oh Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

1. With how sad...a face! "Wordsworth was so much charmed by the first two lines that he adopted them as the opening of a sonnet composed 1806-, a very beautiful one, though in an absolutely different vein from Sidney's. Wordsworth's sonnet is concerned only with the moon and the phenomena of the heavens; Sidney's thoughts are occupied with his love far more than with the moon." (Fowler)
2. That busy archer Cupid
3. if that if.
4. long-with-love-acquainted a exemple of the compound adjective
5. languished languishing
6. descries points out.
7. of fellowship since we are in the like case.
8. Do they... ungratefulness? Do they call ungratefulness a virtue there (as they do here)?
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