Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Amoretti and EpithalamionSonnet XVI. One day as I unwarily did gaze
Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)O
On those fair eyes, my love’s immortal light;
The whiles my ’stonish’d heart stood in amaze,
Through sweet illusion of her look’s delight;
I mote perceive how, in her glancing sight,
Legions of loves with little wings did fly;
Darting their deadly arrows, fiery bright,
At every rash beholder passing by.
One of those archers closely I did spy,
Aiming his arrow at my very heart:
When suddenly, with twinkle of her eye,
The Damsel broke his misintended dart.
Had she not so done, sure I had been slain;
Yet as it was, I hardly scap’d with pain.