The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volumes 1-2

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Houghton, Osgood, 1878

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Page 34 - Crosse he bore, The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, And dead, as living, ever him ador'd : Upon his shield the like was also scor'd, For soveraine hope which in his helpe he had.
Page 35 - Behind her farre away a Dwarfe did lag, That lasie seemd, in being ever last, Or wearied with bearing of her bag Of needments at his backe.
Page 7 - So in the person of Prince Arthure I sette forth Magnificence in particular ; which vertue for that (according to Aristotle and the rest) it is the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all...
Page 36 - 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 ; The Mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound ; The Warlike Beech ; the Ash for nothing ill ; The fruitfull Olive ; and the Platane round ; The carver Holme ; the Maple seeldom inward sound.
Page 47 - 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 lied, 350 Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred.
Page 6 - I have followed all the antique Poets historicall ; first Homere, who in the Persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis : then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of Aeneas...
Page 34 - 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...
Page 299 - There in a gloomy hollow glen she found A little cottage, built of stickes and reedes In homely wize, and ,wald with sods around ; In which a Witch did dwell, in loathly weedes And wilfull want, all carelesse of her needes ; So choosing solitarie to abide Far from all neighbours, that her divelish deedes And hellish arts 'from people she might hide, And hurt far off unknowne whomever she envide.
Page 8 - For the Methode of a Poet historical is not such, as of an Historiographer. For an Historiographer discourseth of affayres orderly as they were donne, accounting as well the times as the actions, but a Poet thrusteth into the middest, even where it most concerneth him, and there recoursing to the thinges forepaste, and divining of thinges to come, maketh a pleasing Analysis of all.
Page 148 - And in the midst of all a fountaine stood, Of richest substance that on earth might bee, So pure and shiny that the silver flood Through every channell running one might see ; Most goodly it with curious ymageree Was overwrought, and shapes of naked boyes, Of which some seemd with lively jollitee To fly about, playing their wanton toyes, Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid joyes.

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