Sonnet XL

Portrait of Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser 1552–1599

MArk when she smiles with amiable cheare, And tell me whereto can ye lyken it: when on each eyelid sweetly doe appeare, an hundred Graces as in shade to sit. Lykest it seemeth in my simple wit vnto the fayre sunshine in somers day: that when a dreadfull storme away is flit, thrugh the broad world doth spred his goodly ray At sight whereof each bird that sits on spray, and euery beast that to his den was fled: comes forth afresh out of their late dismay, and to the light lift vp theyr drouping hed. So my storme beaten hart likewise is cheared, with that sunshine when cloudy looks are cleared.

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