Sonnet XX. In vain I seek and sue to her for grace

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

IN vain I seek and sue to her for grace,

And do mine humbled heart before her pour;

The whiles her foot she in my neck doth place,

And tread my life down in the lowly flower.

And yet the lion that is lord of power,

And reigneth over every beast in field,

In his most pride disdaineth to devour

The silly lamb that to his might doth yield.

But she, more cruel, and more savage wild,

Than either lion or the lioness,

Shames not to be with guiltless blood defiled,

But taketh glory in her cruelness.

Fairer than fairest! let none ever say,

That ye were blooded in a yielded prey.