Edmund Spenser (1552 – 1599)
English poet, who wrote such pastorals as The Shepheardes Calendar, Astrophell and Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, but is most famous for the multi-layered allegorical romance The Faerie Queene.
Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.
I hate the day, because it lendeth light
To see all things, but not my love to see.
Into the woods thenceforth in hast she went,
To seeke for hearbes, that mote him remedy;
For she of hearbes had great intendiment,
Taught of the Nymphe, which from her infancy
Her nourced had in trew Nobility:
There, whether it divine Tobacco were,
Or Panachaea, or Polygony,
She found, and brought it to her patient deare
Who al this while lay bleeding out his hart-bloud neare.
I trow that countenance cannot lie,
Whose thoughts are legible in the eie.
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.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.
. . . . . . . . .
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; 13
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend!
Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound.
And all for love, and nothing for reward.
Me seemes the world is runne quite out of square,
From the first point of his appointed sourse,
And being once amisse growes daily wourse and wourse.
Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew,
And her conception of the joyous Prime.
But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.
Fierce warres and faithfull loves shall moralize my song.
Who will not mercie unto others show,
How can he mercy ever hope to have?
A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine.
How oft do they their silver bowers leave
To come to succour us that succour want!
Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.
For we by conquest, of our soveraine might,
And by eternall doome of Fate's decree,
Have wonne the Empire of the Heavens bright.
That darksome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind.
Entire affection hateth nicer hands.
And in his hand a sickle he did holde,
To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.