DITCHLEY SONNET

The prince of light, the Sonne by whom thin(gs)
Of heaven the glorie, and of earthe the (grace?)
Hath no such glorie as ( . . .) grace to go ( . . . )
Where Correspondencie May have no plac(e)

Thunder the Image of that power dev(ine)
Which all to nothinge with a word c(. . . )
Is to the earthe when it doth ayre r( . . . )
Of power the Scepter, not of wr( . . . )

This ile of such both grace ( . . . ) power
The boundless ocean ( . . .) em( . . .)
P( . . .) p(rince?) ( . . . ) the ( . . )ll ( . . .)
Rivers of thankes retourne for Springes ( . . )

Rivers of thankes still to that oc(ean) ( . . .)
Where grace is grace above, power po(wer)

When the painting was trimmed at some point in the past, the sonnet's right side was cut off.  The conjectural reconstruction of the missing text comes from Ray Strong's Gloriana (1987), a study of Elizabethan portrait iconography..