| Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904. | | | | Amoretti and Epithalamion | | Sonnet LIII. The Panther, knowing that his spotted hide | | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| | | THE PANTHER, knowing that his spotted hide | |
| Doth please all beasts, but that his looks them fray; | |
| Within a bush his dreadful head doth hide, | |
| To let them gaze, whilst he on them may prey: | |
| Right so my cruel fair with me doth play; | 5 |
| For, with the goodly semblance of her hue, | |
| She doth allure me to mine own decay, | |
| And then no mercy will unto me shew. | |
| Great shame it is, thing so divine in view, | |
| Made for to be the world’s most ornament, | 10 |
| To make the bait her gazers to embrue: | |
| Good shames to be to ill an instrument! | |
| But mercy doth with beauty best agree, | |
| As in their Maker ye them best may see. | | | | |
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