| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet I. Happy, ye leaves! when as those lily hands | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | HAPPY, ye leaves! when as those lily hands, | |
| Which hold my life in their dead-doing might, | |
| Shall handle you, and hold in love’s soft bands, | |
| Like captives trembling at the victor’s sight. | |
| And happy lines! on which, with starry light, | 5 |
| Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look, | |
| And read the sorrows of my dying spright, | |
| Written with tears in heart’s close-bleeding book. | |
| And happy rhymes! bath’d in the sacred brook | |
| Of Helicon, whence she derived is; | 10 |
| When ye behold that Angel’s blessed look, | |
| My soul’s long-lacked food, my heaven’s bliss; | |
| Leaves, lines, and rhymes, seek her to please alone, | |
| Whom if ye please, I care for other none! | | | | |
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