| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | So Oft As I Her Beauty Do Behold | | By Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | SO oft as I her beauty do behold, | |
| And therewith do her cruelty compare, | |
| I marvel of what substance was the mould, | |
| The which her made at once so cruel fair, | |
| Not earth, for her high thoughts more heavenly are; | 5 |
| Not water, for her love doth burn like fire; | |
| Not air, for she is not so light or rare; | |
| Not fire, for she doth freeze with faint desire. | |
| Then needs another element inquire | |
| Whereof she mote be made—that is, the sky; | 10 |
| For to the heaven her haughty looks aspire, | |
| And eke her mind is pure immortal high. | |
| Then, sith to heaven ye likened are the best, | |
| Be like in mercy as in all the rest. | | | | |
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