And happy rymes bathed in the sacred brooke
Of Helicon whence she derived is,
When ye behold that Angels blessed looke,
My soules long lacked foode, my heauens blis.
These lines are quoted from "Sonnet-I", the first sonnet of Spenser's sonnet sequence, "Amoretti", in these lines the speaker, in the role of a lover, personifies the "rhymes" and addresses them in a very sublime tone. Here he suggests the purity of his beloved.
The speaker addresses the 'rymes' of his sonnets and says that the rhymes are born of the Muses. He tells them that they will also be happy when they will see angels' blessed look in his beloved's eyes; that look is heaven's gift and his soul has been craving for that look for a long time. These lines refer to the Mount Helicon; according to Greek mythology, there is a spring on the Mount Helicon; the spring is known as the Hippocrene Spring. The Hippocrene Spring is sacred to the Muses, the goddesses of poetry, who help poets to compose poetry. It is believed that the water of that spring is also a source of poetic inspiration. Here in these lines the speaker suggests that his beloved, like the water of the sacred spring, inspires him to compose this poem. In other words, his lady is as pure as the goddess of poetry and she has the ability to inspire the poet to compose poems. The poet here raises the lady to the status of a goddess. This worshipper's attitude to the beloved was practised by the Roman and Elizabethan poets.
