| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Fair Is My Love | | By Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | FAIR is my love, when her fair golden hairs | |
| With the loose wind ye waving chance to mark; | |
| Fair, when the rose in her red cheeks appears; | |
| Or in her eyes the fire of love does spark. | |
| Fair, when her breast, like a rich-laden bark, | 5 |
| With precious merchandise she forth doth lay; | |
| Fair, when that cloud of pride, which oft doth dark | |
| Her goodly light, with smiles she drives away. | |
| But fairest she, when so she doth display | |
| The gate with pearls and rubies richly dight; | 10 |
| Through which her words so wise do make their way | |
| To bear the message of her gentle sprite. | |
| The rest be works of nature’s wonderment: | |
| But this the work of heart’s astonishment. | | | | |
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