ELIZABETHAN SONNET CYCLES Five Major Elizabethan Sonnet Sequences by Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Sir Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser.

A collection of five major sonnet sequences from the Elizabethan era by Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel and William Shakespeare. Each sonnet cycle is love poetry, and some of the finest verse in the English language: Sidney’s ‘Astrophel and Stella’, Daniel’s ‘Delia’, Drayton’s ‘Idea’, Spenser’s ‘Amoretti’, and Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnets’.

This edition prints each poem cycle on its own, without notes or editorial intrusions. And each poem has a page to itself. It’s a useful edition for students.

MICHAEL DRAYTON, SONNET 4, FROM ‘IDEA’:

BRIGHT STAR of beauty, on whose eyelids sit A thousand nymph-like and enamoured graces, The goddesses of memory and wit, Which there in order take their several places; In whose dear bosom, sweet delicious love Lays down his quiver which he once did bear, Since he that blessed paradise did prove, And leaves his mother’s lap to sport him there Let others strive to entertain with words My soul is of a braver mettle made; I hold that vile which vulgar wit affords; In me’s that faith which time cannot invade. Let what I praise be still made good by you; Be you most worthy whilst I am most true!