Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Amoretti and Epithalamion

Sonnet XXXIV. Like as a ship, that through the ocean wide

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

LIKE as a ship, that through the ocean wide,

By conduct of some star, doth make her way;

When as a storm hath dim’d her trusty guide

Out of her course doth wander far astray!

So I, whose star, that wont with her bright ray

Me to direct, with clouds is over-cast,

Do wander now, in darkness and dismay,

Through hidden perils round about me placed;

Yet hope I well that, when this storm is past,

My Helice, the loadstar of my life,

Will shine again, and look on me at last,

With lovely light to clear my cloudy grief,

Till then I wander careful, comfortless,

In secret sorrow, and sad pensiveness.