Poetic Divination | Sonnet LVI: When Like an Eaglet

“Sonnet LVI: When Like an Eaglet” by Michael Drayton

When like an eaglet I first found my Love,

For that the virtue I thereof would know,

Upon the nest I set it forth to prove

If it were of that kingly kind or no;

But it no sooner say my Sun appear,

But on her rays with open eyes it stood,

To show that I had hatch’d it for the air

And rightly came from that brave mounting brood;

And, when the plumes were summ’d with sweet desire,

To prove the pinions it ascends the skies;

Do what I could, it needsly would aspire

To my Soul’s Sun, those two celestial eyes.

Thus from my breast, where it was bred alone,

It after thee is, like an eaglet, flown.