I've been rereading Sidney's sonnets, as I do now and then when I have a yearning for a near-perfect interlock of cadence and language. His words are jewels in the mouth, his music as inevitable as Mozart's. When I want a sonnet that overwhelms me with truth, I read George Herbert. Those other early emperors of the sonnet--Shakespeare, Donne, Spenser: each pursues his own avenues of thought. But when I'm seeking pure sensuousness, Sidney's "With how sad steps, O Moon," Wyatt's "Whoso lists to hunt" . . . these are the sonnets for swooning.

Yesterday was filled with housework, bill paying, piddly chores, necessary but uninspiring. Maybe that's why my thoughts turned to Sir Philip's luxurious verse. His poems have nothing in common with vacuuming and scrubbing toilets. They are silk and soft air. Their sorrows are tender hands unblotched by work. They do not tell my story. They are as remote as peonies.