| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet XLVIII. Innocent paper; whom too cruel hand | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | INNOCENT paper; whom too cruel hand | |
| Did make the matter to avenge her ire: | |
| And, ere she could thy cause well understand, | |
| Did sacrifice unto the greedy fire. | |
| Well worthy thou to have found better hire, | 5 |
| Than so bad end for heretics ordained; | |
| Yet heresy nor treason didst conspire, | |
| But plead thy master’s cause, unjustly pained. | |
| Whom she, all careless of his grief, constrained | |
| To utter forth the anguish of his heart: | 10 |
| And would not hear, when he to her complained | |
| The piteous passion of his dying smart. | |
| Yet live for ever, though against her will, | |
| And speak her good, though she requite it ill. | | | | |
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