| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet XLVI. When my abode’s prefixed time is spent | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | WHEN my abode’s prefixed time is spent, | |
| My cruel fair straight bids me wend my way: | |
| But then from heaven most hideous storms are sent, | |
| As willing me against her will to stay. | |
| Whom then shall I, or heaven or her, obey? | 5 |
| The heavens know best what is the best for me: | |
| But as she will, whose will my life doth sway, | |
| My lower heaven, so it perforce must be. | |
| But ye high heavens, that all this sorrow see, | |
| Sith all your tempests cannot hold me back, | 10 |
| Assuage your storms, or else both you, and she, | |
| Will both together me too sorely wrack. | |
| Enough it is for one man to sustain | |
| The storms, which she alone on me doth rain. | | | | |
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