Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenserwas an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse, and is often considered one of the greatest poets in the English language...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
men vices virtue
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
eye common despise
I learned have, not to despise,What ever thing seemes small in common eyes.
baby boys want
In youth, before I waxe' d old, The blind boy,Venus' baby, For want of cunning made me bold, In bitter hive to grope for honey.
children book self
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.
weed nature fall
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.
men evening states
Man's wretched state, That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late.
winter hands teeth
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.
heaven aurora golden
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.
fashion angel heart
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.
justice grace grows
Where justice grows, there grows eke greater grace.
good-day night long
Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To waste 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.
lying countenance
I trow that countenance cannot lie,Whose thoughts are legible in the eie.
squares firsts world
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.
judging firsts world
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.