| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet III. The sovereign beauty which I do admire | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | THE SOVEREIGN beauty which I do admire, | |
| Witness the world how worthy to be praised! | |
| The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire | |
| In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; | |
| That, being now with her huge brightness dazed, | 5 |
| Base thing I can no more endure to view: | |
| But, looking still on her, I stand amazed | |
| At wondrous sight of so celestial hue. | |
| So when my tongue would speak her praises due, | |
| It stopped is with thought’s astonishment; | 10 |
| And, when my pen would write her titles true, | |
| It ravished is with fancy’s wonderment: | |
| Yet in my heart I then both speak and write | |
| The wonder that my wit cannot endite. | | | | |
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