| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet XIII. In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth | | Edmund Spenser (1552?1599) |
| | | IN that proud port, which her so goodly graceth, | |
| Whiles her fair face she rears up to the sky, | |
| And to the ground her eye-lids low embaseth, | |
| Most goodly temperature ye may descry; | |
| Mild humbless, mixed with awful majesty. | 5 |
| For, looking on the earth whence she was born, | |
| Her mind rememberth her mortality, | |
| Whatso is fairest shall to earth return. | |
| But that same lofty countenance seems to scorn | |
| Base thing, and think how she to heaven may climb; | 10 |
| Treading down earth as loathsome and forlorn, | |
| That hinders heavenly thoughts with drossy slime. | |
| Yet lowly still vouchsafe to look on me; | |
| Such lowliness shall make you lofty be. | | | | |
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