i need help on analysing edmund spencers sonnet 1

Happy ye leaves! whenas those lily hands,
Which hold my life in their dead doing might,
Shall handle you, and hold in love's soft bands,
Like captives trembling at the victor's sight.
And happy lines! on which, with starry light,
Those lamping eyes will deign sometimes to look,
And read the sorrows of my dying sprite,
Written with tears in heart's close bleeding book.
And happy rhymes! bathed in the sacred brook
Of Helicon, whence she derived is,
When ye behold that angel's blessed look,
My soul's long lacked food, my heaven's bliss.
Leaves, lines, and rhymes seek her to please alone,
Whom if ye please, I care for other none.

Leaves are pages, by the way, not those on trees.

Lamping eyes could be bright, or gazing, I guess.

Sprite is spirit, I betcha.

Mount Helicon was the abode of the Muses (nine babes who each presided over a different art or science).

Look up Spenserian Sonnet for the form used.

Look up 'inversion' for the nowadays-scorned error in this line:

Of Helicon, whence she derivèd is,

Sprite is an elf or fairy according to COD.

Bet you lamping eyes isn't the technique of poaching at night by shining a bright torch across a field to illuminate an animal's eyes so that it can be shot.

I think it's the same derivation - lamping eyes just means eyes that catch any light that is available and reflect it back so they look particularly bright

to add to others post, what i have found from other sites is that he was either married to or wooing a woman named elizabeth boyle, thus amoretti is for/about her.

and according to another cite, the lily hands is refering also to her female persona.he states "their dead doing might" which implicates that there was something equally ravishing and mysteriously dainty about her


i got some more info from this paper,maybe it could help

[www.waddo.net]