Edmund Spenser Quotes

1550–1599 England

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 – 13 January 1599) was an 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.

England
Poets

Also known as: Spenser

Random Edmund Spenser quote

107 quotes

As withered weed through cruell winters tine,
That feeles the warmth of sunny beames reflection,
Liftes up his head, that did before decline
And gins to spread his leafe before the faire sunshine.

The Faerie Queene (1589)

At length they all to mery London came,
To mery London, my most kindly Nurse,
That to me gave this lifes first native sourse.

Prothalamion (1596)

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.

At last the golden oriental gate
Of greatest heaven 'gan to open fair,
And Phoebus, fresh as bridegroom to his mate,
Came dancing forth, shaking his dewy hair,
And hurled his glistering beams through gloomy air.

And as she lookt about, she did behold,
How over that same dore was likewise writ,
Be bold, be bold, and every where Be bold,
That much she muz'd, yet could not construe it
By any ridling skill, or commune wit.
At last she spyde at that same roomes upper end,
Another yron dore, on which was writ,
Be not too bold.

The Faerie Queene (1589)

There, in a Meadow, by the Rivers side,
A flocke of Nymphes I chaunced to espy,
All lovely Daughters of the Flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks all loose untyde,
As each had bene a Bryde.

Prothalamion (1596)

With that I saw two swans of goodly hue
Come softly swimming down along the Lee:
Two fairer birds I yet did never see;
The snow which doth the top of Pindus strow
Did never whiter show,
Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be
For love of Leda, whiter did appear.

Prothalamion (1596)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Edmund Spenser (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.