Sonnet XLVI

Portrait of Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser 1552–1599

WHen my abodes prefixed time is spent, My cruell fayre streight bids me wend my way: but then fro[m] heauen most hideous stormes are sent as willing me against her will to stay. Whom then shall I or heauen or her obay, the heauens know best what is the best for me: but as she will, whose will my life doth sway, my lower heauen, so it perforce must bee. But ye high heuens, that all this sorowe see, sith all your tempests cannot hold me backe: aswage your stormes, or else both you and she, will both together me too sorely wrack. Enough it is for one man to sustaine, the stormes, which she alone on me doth raine.

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