made a gesture of assent, and Philip Sidney read, with a
depth of pathos in his voice which thrilled the listeners,--

'Ah! see, whoso faire thing dost faine to see,
In springing flowre the image of thy day!
Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly shee
Doth first peepe foorth with bashful modestee,
That fairer seemes, the lesse ye see her may!
Lo! see soone after how more bold and free
Her bared bosome she doth broad display.
Lo! see soone after how she fades and falls away!

'So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life, the leafe, the bud, the flowre,
No more doth flourish after first decay.
That erst was sought to deck both bed and bowre
Of many a ladie, and many a paramoure!
Gather, therefore, the rose, whilst yet is prime,
For soon comes age that will her pride deflowre;
Gather the rose of love, whilst yet is time,
Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equall crime.'

These last verses were received in silence. There was no remark made on
them, and no criticism.

Probably both Sidney's friends felt that they referred to what was too
sacred to be touched by a careless hand; and, indeed, there was no one,
even amongst Philip's dearest friends, except his sister Mary, the Countess
of Pembroke, who ever approached the subject of his love for Stella--that
rose which Philip had not gathered when within his reach, and which was now
drooping under an influence more merciless than that of age--the baneful
influence of a most unhappy marriage.

The Queen had that very morning spoken out with a pitiless bluntness, which
had made Philip unusually thoughtful. The very words the Queen had used
haunted him--'tale-bearers, who had neither clean hearts nor clean
tongue.'

Edward Dyer, according to the custom of the friends when they met, read
some verses he had lately composed, and Fulke Greville followed.

Then Philip Sidney was called upon to contribute a sonnet or stanza.

If he never reached the highest standard of poetry, and, even in his best
stanzas of _Stella and Astrophel_, rivalled the sweet flow of Edmund
Spenser's verse, he had the gift of making his verses vividly express what
was uppermost in his mind at the moment, as many of the _Stella and
Astrophel_ poems abundantly testify.

In early youth Philip Sidney had been influenced by a distinguished convert
to the Reformed Faith, Hubert Languet, whom he met at Frankfort.