On this arrangement is by far the greater portion of Sidney's sonnets constructed; but the most pleasing of his metrical forms, and which has the merit too of being built after the Italian cast, consists in the Octant, of two tetrachords of disjunct alternate rhime, the last line of the first stanza rhiming to the first of the second; and in the Sextant, of a structure in which the first and second, the fourth and fifth, and the third and sixth verses rhime. Thus has he formed the following exquisite sonnet, which will afford no inaccurate idea of his powers in this province of the art:—
"O kisse, which doest those ruddie gemmes impart,
Or gemmes, or fruits of new-found Paradise,
Breathing all blisse and sweetning to the heart,
Teaching dumbe lips a nobler exercise.
O kisse, which soules, even soules, together tyes
By linkes of Love, and only Nature's art:
How faine would I paint thee to all men's eyes,
Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part.