Edmund Spenser Quotes

I hate the day, because it lendeth light To see all things, but not my love to see.

What more felicitie can fall to creature Than to enjoy delight with libertie, And to be lord of all the workes of Nature, To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie, To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To wast long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow. . . . . . . . . . To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; 13 To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne. Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end, That doth his life in so long tendance spend!

To kerke the narre from God more farre, Has bene an old-sayd sawe; And he that strives to touche a starre Oft stombles at a strawe.

For all that faire is, is by nature good; That is a signe to know the gentle blood.

So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer bodie doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairely dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight:
For of the soule the bodie forme doth take; For the soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.

For deeds do die, however nobly done,
And thoughts of men do as themselves decay;
But wise words, taught in numbers for to run,
Recorded by the Muses, live for aye;
Nor may with storming showers be washed away;
Nor bitter-breathing winds, with harmful blast,
Nor age, nor envy, shall them ever waste.

I learned have, not to despise, What ever thing seemes small in common eyes.

Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.

I trow that countenance cannot lie, Whose thoughts are legible in the eie.

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song.

Let therefore nought that great is, therein glorie, / Sith so small thing his happiness may varie.

a mortal thing so to immortalize

It is the mynd, that maketh good or ill,
That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poore:
For some, that hath abundance at his will,
Hath not enough, but wants in greatest store;
And other, that hath litle, askes no more,
But in that litle is both rich and wise.

I glad by any meanes her grace to gaine,
Bad her commaund my life to saue, or spill.
Eftsoones she bad me, with incessaunt paine
To wander through the world abroad at will,
And euery where, where with my power or skill
I might do seruice vnto gentle Dames,
That I the same should faithfully fulfill,
And at the twelue monethes end should bring their names
And pledges; as the spoiles of my victorious games.

So well I to faire Ladies seruice did,
And found such fauour in their louing hartes,
That ere the yeare his course had compassid,
Three hundred pledges for my good desartes,
And thrise three hundred thanks for my good partes
I with me brought, and did to her present:
Which when she saw, more bent to eke my smartes,
Then to reward my trusty true intent,
She gan for me deuise a grieuous punishment.

To weet, that I my trauell should resume,
And with like labour walke the world around,
Ne euer to her presence should presume,
Till I so many other Dames had found,
The which, for all the suit I could propound,
Would me refuse their pledges to afford,
But did abide for euer chast and sound.
Ah gentle Squire (quoth he) tell at one word,
How many foundst thou such to put in thy record?

In deed Sir knight (said he) one word may tell
All, that I euer found so wisely stayd;
For onely three they were disposd so well,
And yet three yeares I now abroad haue strayd,..