Poem by Edmund Spenser

Amoretti 45. Leave, Lady! in your glasse of cristall clene

Leave, Lady! in your glasse of cristall clene
Your goodly selfe for evermore to vew,
And in my selfe, (my inward selfe I meane,)
Most lively lyke behold your semblant trew.
Within my hart, though hardly it can shew
Thing so divine to vew of earthly eye,
The fayre idea of your celestiall hew
And every part remaines immortally:
And were it not that through your cruelty
With sorrow dimmed and deform’d it were,
The goodly ymage of your visnomy*,
Clearer than cristall, would therein appere.
  But if your selfe in me ye playne will see,
  Remove the cause by which your fayre beames darkned be.

[* Visnomy, countenance.] 

1. Amoretti 63. After long stormes and tempests sad assay
2. Amoretti 46. When my abodes prefixed time is spent
3. Amoretti 43. Shall I then silent be, or shall I speake?
4. Amoretti 59. Thrise happie she that is so well assured
5. Amoretti 49. Fayre Cruell! why are ye so fierce and cruell?

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