Edmund Spenser (1552–1599): English poet. The library holds 76 quotes by Edmund Spenser, drawn from Faerie Queene, Faërie Queene, Ruins of Time and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,
No arborett with painted blossoms drest
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.
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.
Slanderous reproaches, and foul infamies,
Leasings, backbitings, and vainglorious crakes,
Bad counsels, praises, and false flatteries;
All those against that fort did bend their batteries.
Bring, therefore, all the forces that you may,
And lay incessant battery to her heart;
Plaints, prayers, vows, ruth, and sorrow, and dismay,—These engines can the proudest love convert.
And after him came next the chill December:
Yet he, through merry feasting which he made
And great bonfires, did not the cold remember;
His Saviour’s birth his mind so much did glad.
Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not,
But heavenly pourtraict of bright angels’ hew,
Cleare as the skye withouten blame or blot,
Through goodly mixture of complexion’s dew.
How many great ones may remember’d be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip’d out with a sponge do perish.
As that renownèd poet them compyled
With warlike numbers and heroicke sound,
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame’s eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.
Then came the jolly Sommer, being dight
In a thin silken cassock, coloured greene,
That was unlynèd all, to be more light,
And on his head a garlande well beseene.
Then came old January, wrappèd well
In many weeds to keep the cold away;
Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell,
And blow his nails to warm them if he may.
Where my high steeples whilom used to stand,
On which the lordly falcon wont to tower,
There now is but an heap of lime and sand,
For the screech-owl to build her baleful bower.
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.
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.
Next was November; he full gross and fat
As fed with lard, and that right well might seem;
For he had been a-fatting hogs of late,
That yet his brows with sweat did reek and steam.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tried
What hell it is in suing long to bide;
To lose good days that might be better spent,
To waste long nights in pensive discontent.