| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet XXIX. See! how the stubborn damsel doth deprave | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | SEE! how the stubborn damsel doth deprave | |
| My simple meaning with disdainful scorn; | |
| And by the bay, which I unto her gave, | |
| Accounts myself her captive quite forlorn. | |
| The bay (quoth she) is of the victors born, | 5 |
| Yielded them by the vanquish’d as their meeds, | |
| And they therewith do poets’ heads adorn, | |
| To sing the glory of their famous deeds. | |
| But sith she will the conquest challenge needs, | |
| Let her accept me as her faithful thrall; | 10 |
| That her great triumph, which my skill exceeds, | |
| I may in trump of fame blaze over all. | |
| Then would I deck her head with glorious bays, | |
| And fill the world with her victorious praise. | | | | |
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