Sonnet I*.
By Edmund Spenser
To the right worshipfull, my singular good frend, M. Gabriell Harvey, Doctor of the Lawes.
Harvey, the happy above happiest men
I read**; that, sitting like a looker-on
Of this worldes stage, doest note with critique pen
The sharpe dislikes of each condition:
And, as one carelesse of suspition,
Ne fawnest for the favour of the great,
Ne fearest foolish reprehension
Of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat:
But freely doest of what thee list entreat,@
Like a great lord of peerelesse liberty,
Lifting the good up to high Honours seat,
And the evill damning evermore to dy:
For life and death is in thy doomeful writing;
So thy renowme lives ever by endighting.
Dublin, this xviij. of July, 1586.
Your devoted friend, during life,
EDMUND SPENCER.