Edmund Spenser Quotes

137 Sourced Quotes

Her angel's face
As the great eye of heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.

Edmund Spenser
To kirk the nearer, from God more far,
Has been an old-said saw.
And he that strives to touch the stars,
Oft stumbles at a straw.

Edmund Spenser
Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,
Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.

Edmund Spenser
What more felicity can fall to creature,
Than to enjoy delight with liberty.

Edmund Spenser
There learned arts do flourish in great honour
And poets's wits are had in peerless price;
Religion hath lay power, to rest upon her,
Advancing virtue, and suppressing vice.
For end all good, all grace there freely grows,
Had people grace it gratefully to use:
For God His gifts there plenteously bestows,
But graceless men them greatly do abuse.

Edmund Spenser
In vain he seeketh others to suppress, Who hath not learn'd himself first to subdue.

Edmund Spenser
Man's wretched state, That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late.

Edmund Spenser
For that which all men then did virtue call, Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all: Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right

Edmund Spenser
For next to Death is Sleepe to be compared;
Therefore his house is unto his annext:
Here Sleepe, ther Richesse, and hel-gate them both betwext.

Edmund Spenser
Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee.

Edmund Spenser
Lastly came Winter cloathed all in frize, Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill; Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freese, And the dull drops, that from his purpled bill As from a limebeck did adown distill: In his right hand a tipped staffe he held, With which his feeble steps he stayed still; For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld; That scarce his loosed limbes he hable was to weld.

Edmund Spenser
Working her formall rowmes in wexen frame, The grieslie Tode-stoole growne there mought I se And loather Paddocks lording on the same.

Edmund Spenser
He oft finds med'cine, who his griefe imparts; But double griefs afflict concealing harts, As raging flames who striveth to supresse.

Edmund Spenser
Good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete?
What! hath some wolfe thy tender lambes ytorne?
Or is thy bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete?
Or art thou of thy loved lasse forlorne?

Edmund Spenser
What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware,
As to descry the crafty cunning train,
By which deceit doth mask in visor fair,
And cast her colours dyed deep in grain,
To seem like truth, whose shape she well can feign,
And fitting gestures to her purpose frame,
The guiltless man with guile to entertain?

Edmund Spenser
Yet neither spinnes, nor cards, ne cares nor fretts, But to her mother Nature all her care she letts.

Edmund Spenser
For easy things, that may be got at will, Most sorts of men do set but little store.

Edmund Spenser
Good is no good, but if it be spend,
God giveth good for none other end.

Edmund Spenser
Full many mischiefs follow cruel wrath;
Abhorred bloodshed and tumultuous strife
Unmanly murder and unthrifty scath,
Bitter despite, with rancor's rusty knife;
And fretting grief the enemy of life;
All these and many evils more, haunt ire.

Edmund Spenser
Yet is there one more cursed than they all,
That canker-worm, that monster, jealousie,
Which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall,
Turning all love's delight to misery,
Through fear of losing his felicity.

Edmund Spenser
What man that sees the ever-whirling wheel
Of Change, the which all mortal things doth sway,
But that thereby doth find, and plainly feel,
How Mutability in them doth play
Her cruel sports, to many men's decay?

Edmund Spenser
But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.

Edmund Spenser
Who will not mercie unto others show,
How can he mercy ever hope to have?

Edmund Spenser
O happy earth,
Whereon thy innocent feet doe ever tread!

Edmund Spenser
Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes,
And blesseth her with his two happy hands.

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

Edmund Spenser
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled,
On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed.

Edmund Spenser
For all that fair is, is by nature good;
That is a sign to know the gentle blood.

Edmund Spenser
But on his breast a bloody cross he bore,
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord.

Edmund Spenser
But as it falleth, in the gentlest hearts Imperious love hath highest set his throne, And tyrannizeth in the bitter smarts Of them, that to him buxom are and prone.

Edmund Spenser