| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Delia | | Sonnet XL. Delia! These eyes that so admireth thine! | | Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) |
| | | D E L I A! These eyes that so admireth thine! | |
| Have seen those walls the which ambition reared | |
| To check the world. How they, entombed, have lain | |
| Within themselves: and on them ploughs have eared. | |
| Yet found I, that no barbarous hand attained | 5 |
| The spoil of Fame, deserved by virtuous men, | |
| Whose glorious actions, luckily, had gained | |
| Th’eternal annals of a happy pen. | |
| Why then, though D E L I A fade! let that not move her! | |
| Though time do spoil her of the fairest veil | 10 |
| That ever yet mortality did cover; | |
| Which must instar the Needle and the Rail. | |
| That grace, that virtue, all that served t’in-woman, | |
| Doth her, unto eternity assommon. | | | | |
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