words came halting forth

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That the dear she might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain:
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain;
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame study's blows,
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."

—Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Sonnet 1 from Astrophil and Stella.

This might be my favorite ars poetica, although it's a tough call; this is also probably the most famous poem from Astrophil and Stella, and indeed one of Sidney's most famous in general. I really love it, because every time I read it I am like, "yes, that." Plus, I mean, Invention is the red-headed stepchild of Study! Sidney is pregnant with poetry! Pleasure makes reading makes knowledge makes pity makes grace! I am also obsessed with the fact that this poem -- the first in a sequence that is mostly, but not entirely, in iambic pentameter -- is in hexameters. I should probably be writing the paper I am writing today all about the inexplicable hexameters in Astrophil and Stella, instead of on Mary Wroth's imitations of her uncle; but I backed myself into this Mary Wroth corner, and I am going to make the best of it, even if I turn out not to care very much at all about sonnet sequences as a genre. "Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write."