The Works of Edmund Spenser

Front Cover
Macmillan and Company, limited, 1902 - Authors, English - 736 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page xxvii - THE measure is English heroic verse without rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin — rime being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame metre...
Page 589 - Why stand ye still ye virgins in amaze, Upon her so to gaze, Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing, To which the woods did answer, and your eccho ring?
Page 15 - He, making speedy way through spersed ayre, And through the world of waters wide and deepe, To Morpheus house doth hastily repaire. Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe, And low, where dawning day doth never peepe, His dwelling is ; there Tethys his wet bed Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe In silver deaw his ever-drouping hed, Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred.
Page 589 - The more they on it stare. But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground, Are governed with goodly modesty, That suffers not one looke to glaunce awry, Which may let in a little thought unsownd.
Page 11 - A GENTLE Knight was pricking on the plaine, Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde ; Yet armes till that time did he never wield : His angry steede did chide his foming bitt, As much disdayning to the curbe to yield : Full jolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt, As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.
Page 590 - With Barnaby the bright, From whence declining daily by degrees, He somewhat loseth of his heat and light, When once the Crab behind his back he sees.
Page 14 - At length they chaunst to meet upon the way An aged Sire, in long blacke weedes yclad, His feete all bare, his beard all hoarie gray, And by his belt his booke he hanging had; Sober he seemde, and very sagely sad, And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent, Simple in shew, and voide of malice bad, And all the way he prayed, as he went, And often knockt his brest, as one that did repent.
Page 12 - The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours And poets sage, the firre that weepeth still, The willow, worne of forlorne paramours, The eugh obedient to the benders will, The birch for shaftes, the sallow for the mill...
Page 12 - A lovely ladie rode him faire beside, Upon a lowly asse more white then snow ; Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide Under a vele, that wimpled was full low...
Page 589 - Hymen, Hymen sing, That al the woods them answer, and theyr eccho ring. Loe ! where she comes along with portly pace, Lyke Phoebe, from her chamber of the East, Arysing forth to run her mighty race, Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best. So well it her beseemes, that ye would weene Some angell she had beene.

Bibliographic information