Edmund Spenser Quotes

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

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
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

Edmund Spenser
So Orpheus did for his owne bride,
So I unto my selfe alone will sing,
The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring.

Edmund Spenser
But angels come to lead frail minds to rest in chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within; you stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak.

Edmund Spenser
At last, the golden orientall gate Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre, And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate, Came dauncing forth, shaking his dewie hayre; And hurls his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.

Edmund Spenser
Like to an almond tree mounted hye On top of greene Selinis all alone, With blossoms brave bedecked daintily; Whose tender locks do tremble every one, At everie little breath, that under heaven is blowne.

Edmund Spenser
Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime,
For none can call again the passed time.

Edmund Spenser
Those that were up themselves, kept others low;
Those that were low themselves, held others hard;
He suffered them to ryse or greater grow;
But every one did strive his fellow down to throw.

Edmund Spenser
From good to bad, and from bad to worse,
From worse unto that is worst of all,
And then return to his former fall.

Edmund Spenser
Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere;
Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough;
Sweet is the eglantine, but stiketh nere;
Sweet is the firbloome, but its braunches rough;
Sweet is the cypress, but its rynd is tough;
Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;
Sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough;
And sweet is moly, but his root is ill.

Edmund Spenser
All that in this world is great or gay,
Doth, as a vapor, vanish and decay.

Edmund Spenser
Laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people whom they are meant to benefit, and not imposed upon them according to the simple rule of right.

Edmund Spenser
Through knowledge we behold the world's creation, How in his cradle first he fostered was; And judge of Nature's cunning operation, How things she formed of a formless mass.

Edmund Spenser
My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?

Edmund Spenser
And through the hall there walked to and fro A jolly yeoman, marshall of the same, Whose name was Appetite; he did bestow Both guestes and meate, whenever in they came, And knew them how to order without blame.

Edmund Spenser
Joy may you have and gentle hearts content
Of your loves couplement:
And let faire Venus, that is Queene of love,
With her heart-quelling Sonne upon you smile

Edmund Spenser
The Patron of true Holinesse,
Foule Errour doth defeate:
Hypocrisie him to entrappe,
Doth to his home entreate.

Edmund Spenser
Why then should witless man so much misween, That nothing is, but that which he hath seene? What if in the Moones faire shining speheare? What if in every other starre unseene, Of other worldes he happily should heare? That nothing is, but that which he hath seene?

Edmund Spenser
Foul jealousy! that turnest love divine to joyless dread, and makest the loving heart with hateful thoughts to languish and to pine.

Edmund Spenser
Waking love suffereth no sleepe:
Say, that raging love dothe appall the weake stomacke:
Say, that lamenting love marreth the musicall.

Edmund Spenser
A sweet attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks,
Continual comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel books--
I trow that countenance cannot lye
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.

Edmund Spenser
The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded.

Edmund Spenser
Like as the culver on the bared bough
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate

Edmund Spenser
The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne.
For a man by nothing is so well bewrayd,
As by his manners.

Edmund Spenser