…from the quills of the dead white poets
Edmund Spenser (1552 – 1599)
Mark when she smiles with amiable cheer,
And tell me whereto can ye liken it:
When one each eyelid sweetly do appear
An hundred graces as in shade to sit.
Likest it seemeth in my simple wit
Unto the fair sunshine in summer’s day:
That when a dreadful storm away is flit,
Through the broad world doth spread his goodly ray:
At sight whereof each bird that sits on spray,
And every beast that to his den was fled
Cometh forth afresh out of their late dismay,
And to the light lift up their drooping head.
So my storm beaten heart likewise is cheered,
With that sunshine when cloudy looks are cleared.
/from Amoretti, Sonnet XL/