Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Amoretti and EpithalamionSonnet III. The sovereign beauty which I do admire
Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)T
Witness the world how worthy to be praised!
The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire
In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised;
That, being now with her huge brightness dazed,
Base thing I can no more endure to view:
But, looking still on her, I stand amazed
At wondrous sight of so celestial hue.
So when my tongue would speak her praises due,
It stopped is with thought’s astonishment;
And, when my pen would write her titles true,
It ravished is with fancy’s wonderment:
Yet in my heart I then both speak and write
The wonder that my wit cannot endite.