Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Amoretti and Epithalamion

Sonnet LXXXVII. Since I have lack’d the comfort of that light

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

SINCE I have lack’d the comfort of that light,

The which was wont to lead my thoughts astray;

I wander as in darkness of the night,

Afraid of every danger’s least dismay.

Ne aught I see, though in the clearest day,

When others gaze upon their shadows vain,

But th’ only image of that heavenly ray,

Whereof some glance doth in mine eye remain.

Of which beholding the Idæa plain,

Through contemplation of my purest part,

With light thereof I do myself sustain,

And thereon feed my love-affamish’d heart:

But, with such brightness whilst I fill my mind,

I starve my body, and mine eyes do blind.