Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet dresses up as a polite response to a flurry of political gossip: Will the Turkish crescent menace Christian coasts this year? How will Poland’s king treat Muscovy? Can France’s three factions ever unite? And so on—Dutch boasting, Irish resentment, Scottish intrigue. But it’s really a love poem. The speaker, Astrophil, admits that these are the kind of questions that “busy wits” enjoy, while he answers by rote, “cumber’d with good manners.” His mind is elsewhere entirely. The final line strips away all pretense: “for still I think of you.” The effect is intimate and slightly ironic. You feel a man surrounded by talk of war and statecraft who can only murmur vague replies because his thoughts are lost in daydreams of Stella. The poem makes the clamor of the larger world seem faint and unimportant next to the quiet, persistent pull of love.
Sonnet XXX: Whether the Turkish New Moon — Summary
Whether the Turkish new moon minded be To fill his horns this year on Christian coast; How Poles' right king means, with leave of host, To warm with ill-made fire cold Muscovy;
If French can yet three parts in one agree; What now the Dutch in their full diets boast; How Holland hearts, now so good towns be lost, Trust in the shade of pleasing Orange tree;
How Ulster likes of that same golden bit Wherewith my father once made it half tame; If in the Scotch court be no welt'ring yet:
These questions busy wits to me do frame. I, cumber'd with good manners, answer do, But know not how, for still I think of you.