It is his other great work, the sequence of sonnets entitled _Astrophel and Stella_, which concerns us here.

They celebrate the history of his love for Penelope Devereux, sister of the Earl of Essex, a love brought to disaster by the intervention of Queen Elizabeth with whom he had quarrelled.

As poetry they mark an epoch.

They are the first direct expression of an intimate and personal experience in English literature, struck off in the white heat of passion, and though they are coloured at times with that over-fantastic imagery which is at once a characteristic fault and excellence of the writing of the time, they never lose the one merit above all others of lyric poetry, the merit of sincerity.

The note is struck with certainty and power in the first sonnet of the series:-- "Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she, 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 flower upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth ...
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 'Fool,' said my muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.'" And though he turned others' leaves it was quite literally looking in his heart that he wrote.