For love is a celestial harmony Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent, Which join together in sweet sympathy, To work each other's joy and true… - Edmund Spenser

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.

Ay me, how many perils doe enfold The righteous man, to make him daily fall!

Hurled his beame so scorching cruell hot,
That living creature mote it not abide;
And his new lady it endured not.
There they alight, in hope themselves to hide 260
From the fierce heat, and rest their weary limbs a tide. XXX Faire seemely pleasaunce each to other makes,
With goodly purposes, there as they sit:
And in his falsed fancy he her takes
To be the fairest wight that lived yit; 265
Which to expresse, he bends his gentle wit,
And thinking of those braunches greene to frame
A girlond for her dainty forehead fit,
He pluckt a bough; out of whose rifte there came
Smal drops of gory bloud, that trickled down the same. 270 XXXI Therewith a piteous yelling voice was heard,
Crying, ‘O spare with guilty hands to teare
My tender sides in this rough rynd embard;
But fly, ah! fly far hence away, for feare