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Home  »  Elizabethan Sonnets  »  Canzon 12. How often have mine eyes (thine eye’s apprentice

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Zepheria

Canzon 12. How often have mine eyes (thine eye’s apprentice

Anonymous

HOW often have mine eyes (thine eye’s apprentice

Bound by the Earnest of a sunny look),

Ta’en a judicial view of all thy graces!

Which here are registered in lasting book.

How oft have I, thy precious chain been fingering,

That ninefold circles thy delicious neck!

While they, the orb-like spheres of heaven resembling,

Thy face the Globe! which men clep Emperick.

How oft with wanton touches have I prest

Those breasts, more soft than silver down of swans;

When they by Alcidelian springs do rest!

Of which pure substance are thy lily hands.

But now, though eyes ne see, nor arms embrace thee;

Who yet shall let, in thought, me chief to place thee?