Edmund Spenser Quotes

I was promised on a time To have reason for my rhyme From that time unto this season I received nor rhyme nor reason.

It is the mind that maketh good of ill that maketh wretch or happy rich or poor.

The poet's scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. The Genius survives all else is claimed by death.

Ah for pittie, wil ranke Winters rage,These bitter blasts neuer ginne tasswage?The keene cold blowes throug my beaten hyde,All as I were through the body gryde.My ragged rontes all shiver and shake,As doen high Towers in an earthquake:They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes,Perke as Peacock: but nowe it auales.

So furiously each other did assayle, As if their soules they would attonce haue rent Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent; That all the ground with purple bloud was sprent, And all their armours staynd with bloudie gore, Yet scarcely once to breath would they relent, So mortall was their malice and so sore,Become of fayned friendship which they vow'd afore.

For love is a celestial harmonyOf likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,Which join together in sweet sympathy,To work each other's joy and true content,Which they have harbour'd since their first descentOut of their heavenly bowers, where they did seeAnd know each other here belov'd to be.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,But came the waves and washèd it away:Again I wrote it with a second hand,But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Why then should witless man so much misweeneThat nothing is but that which he hath seene?