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?

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,

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.