Sonnet LVI: When Like an Eaglet

Portrait of Michael Drayton
Michael Drayton 1563–1631

When like an eaglet I first found my Love, For that the virtue I thereof would know, Upon the nest I set it forth to prove If it were of that kingly kind or no; But it no sooner say my Sun appear, But on her rays with open eyes it stood, To show that I had hatch'd it for the air And rightly came from that brave mounting brood; And, when the plumes were summ'd with sweet desire, To prove the pinions it ascends the skies; Do what I could, it needsly would aspire To my Soul's Sun, those two celestial eyes. Thus from my breast, where it was bred alone, It after thee is, like an eaglet, flown.

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