Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty

Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty

Original Text
Edmund Spenser, Amoretti and Epithalamion (P. S. for W. Ponsonby, 1595). STC 23076. Facs.edn. (Scolar Press, 1968). PR 2360 A5 1595E Robarts Library
2Witness the world how worthy to be praised:
3The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire
4In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised;
5That being now with her huge brightness dazed,
6Base thing I can no more endure to view;
7But looking still on her, I stand amazed
8At wondrous sight of so celestial hue.
9So when my tongue would speak her praises due,
10It stopped is with thought's astonishment:
11And when my pen would write her titles true,
12It ravish'd is with fancy's wonderment:
13Yet in my heart I then both speak and write
14The wonder that my wit cannot endite.

Notes

1] A series of eighty-eight sonnets, published in 1595 and probably written between 1592 and 1594 during the poet's wooing of Elizabeth Boyle. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1595
RPO poem Editors
N. J. Endicott
RPO Edition
2RP 1.111.