Amoretti I: Happy ye leaves when as those lilly hands / EDMUND SPENSER

 

              

Happy ye leaves when as those lilly hands,

Which hold my life in their dead doing might

Shall handle you and hold in loves soft bands,

Lyke captives trembling at the victors sight.

 

And happy lines, on which with starry light,

Those lamping eyes will deigne sometimes to look

And reade the sorrowes of my dying spright,

Written with teares in harts close bleeding book.

 

And happy rymes bath’d in the sacred brooke,

Of Helicon whence she derived is,

When ye behold that Angels blessed looke,

My soules long lacked foode, my heavens blis.

 

Leaves, lines, and rymes, seeke her to please alone,                    Whom if ye please, I care for other none.