Sonnet I. Happy, ye leaves! when as those lily hands

Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)

HAPPY, ye leaves! when as those lily hands,

Which hold my life in their dead-doing might,

Shall handle you, and hold in love’s soft bands,

Like captives trembling at the victor’s sight.

And happy lines! on which, with starry light,

Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,

And read the sorrows of my dying spright,

Written with tears in heart’s close-bleeding book.

And happy rhymes! bath’d in the sacred brook

Of Helicon, whence she derived is;

When ye behold that Angel’s blessed look,

My soul’s long-lacked food, my heaven’s bliss;

Leaves, lines, and rhymes, seek her to please alone,

Whom if ye please, I care for other none!