The Poetry Corner

Sonnet 57

By Michael Drayton

You best discern'd of my interior eies, And yet your graces outwardly diuine, Whose deare remembrance in my bosome lies, Too riche a relique for so poore a shrine: You in whome Nature chose herselfe to view, When she her owne perfection would admire, Bestowing all her excellence on you; At whose pure eies Loue lights his halowed fire, Euen as a man that in some traunce hath scene, More than his wondring vttrance can vnfolde, That rapt in spirite in better worlds hath beene, So must your praise distractedly be tolde; Most of all short, when I should shew you most, In your perfections altogether lost.