Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.
Amoretti and EpithalamionSonnet XXXI. Ah! why hath nature to so hard a heart
Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)A
Given so goodly gifts of beauty’s grace!
Whose pride depraves each other better part,
And all those precious ornaments deface.
Sith to all other beasts of bloody race
A dreadful countenance she given hath;
That with their terror all the rest may chase,
And warn to shun the danger of their wrath.
But my proud one doth work the greater scathe,
Through sweet allurement of her lovely hue;
That she the better may in bloody bath
Of such poor thralls her cruel hands embrue.
But, did she know how ill these two accord,
Such cruelty she would have soon abhor’d.