Happy Ye Leaves When As Those Lilly Hands
(Sonnet : 1)
Edmund Spencer
Happy ye leaves when as those lilly hands,
Which hold my life in their dead doing might
Shall handle you and hold in loves soft bands,
Lyke captives trembling at the victors sight.
And happy lines, on which with starry light,
Those lamping eyes will deigne sometimes to look
And reade the sorrowes of my dying spright,
Written with teares in harts close bleeding book.
And happy rymes bath’d in the sacred brooke,
Of Helicon whence she derived is,
When ye behold that Angels blessed looke,
My soules long lacked foode, my heavens blis.
Leaves, lines, and rymes, seeke her to please alone,
Whom if ye please, I care for other none.
Summary of "Happy Ye Leaves When As Those Lilly Hands"
The first quatrain is saying that he envies leaves that his love holds lovingly in her hands -- hands which hold his life (because he loves her so much.
The second quatrain is saying that the lines he writes should be happy because his love will look at them. Even if she's crying for his death, at least the lines should be happy because she's looking at them.
The third quatrain is saying his rhymes should also be happy because she's looking at them. And he's saying that she is his muse -- Mt. Helicon is where the muses were supposed to be from.
The couplet says that all those things should only care about pleasing her because he himself doesn't care about anything else.
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