Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Amoretti and EpithalamionSonnet XXXIX. Sweet smile! the daughter of the Queen of Love
Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)S
Expressing all thy mother’s powerful art.
With which she wonts to temper angry Jove,
When all the gods he threats with thundering dart:
Sweet is thy virtue, as thy self sweet art.
For, when on me thou shined’st late in sadness,
A melting pleasance ran through every part,
And me revived with heart-robbing gladness,
Whilst rapt with joy resembling heavenly madness,
My soul was ravish’d quite as in a trance;
And, feeling thence, no more her sorrow’s sadness,
Fed on the fulness of that cheerful glance,
More sweet than nectar, or ambrosial meat,
Seem’d every bit which thenceforth I did eat.