Edmund Spenser

Amoretti 48. Innocent paper! whom too cruell hand

Innocent paper! whom too cruell hand
Did make the matter to avenge her yre,
And ere she could thy cause well understand,
Did sacrifize unto the greedy fyre,
Well worthy thou to have found better hyre
Then so bad end, for hereticks ordayned;
Yet heresy nor treason didst conspire,
But plead thy maisters cause, unjustly payned:
Whom she, all carelesse of his grief, constrayned
To utter forth the anguish of his hart,
And would not heare, when he to her complayned
The piteous passion of his dying smart.
  Yet live for ever, though against her will,
  And speake her good, though she requite it ill.