The Complete Poems of Richard Barnfield/Cynthia/Sonnet 3

by Richard Barnfield

III.

The Stoicks thinke, (and they come neare the truth,)
That vertue is the chiefest good of all,
The Academicks on Idea call.
The Epicures in pleasure spend their youth,
The Perrepatetickes iudge felicitie,
To be the chiefest good aboue all other,
One man, thinks this; & that conceaues another:
So that in one thing very few agree.
Let Stoicks haue their Vertue if they will,
And all the rest their chiefe-supposed good,
Let cruel Martialists delight in blood,
And Mysers ioy their bags with gold to fill:
My chiefest good, my chiefe felicity,
Is to be gazing on my loues faire eie.