| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet XXII. This holy season, fit to fast and pray | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | THIS holy season, fit to fast and pray, | |
| Men to devotion ought to be inclined: | |
| Therefore, I likewise, on so holy day, | |
| For my sweet saint some service fit will find. | |
| Her temple fair is built within my mind, | 5 |
| In which her glorious image placed is, | |
| On which my thoughts do day and night attend, | |
| Like sacred priests that never think amiss! | |
| There I to her, as th’ author of my bliss, | |
| Will build an altar to appease her ire; | 10 |
| And on the same my heart will sacrifice, | |
| Burning in flames of pure and chaste desire: | |
| The which vouchsafe, O goddess, to accept, | |
| Amongst thy dearest relics to be kept. | | | | |
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