| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet XLII. The love which me so cruelly tormenteth | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | THE LOVE which me so cruelly tormenteth, | |
| So pleasing is in my extremest pain, | |
| That, all the more my sorrow it augmenteth, | |
| The more I love and do embrace my bane. | |
| Ne do I wish (for wishing were but vain) | 5 |
| To be acquit fro my continual smart; | |
| But joy, her thrall for ever to remain, | |
| And yield for pledge my poor captivéd heart; | |
| The which, that it from her may never start, | |
| Let her, if please her, bind with adamant chain: | 10 |
| And from all wandering loves, which mote pervert | |
| His safe assurance, strongly it restrain. | |
| Only let her abstain from cruelty, | |
| And do me not before my time to die. | | | | |
|
|
