Sonnet II*.

Whoso wil seeke, by right deserts, t'attaine
Unto the type of true nobility,
And not by painted shewes, and titles vaine,
Derived farre from famous auncestrie,
Behold them both in their right visnomy**
Here truly pourtray'd as they ought to be,
And striving both for termes of dignitie,
To be advanced highest in degree.
And when thou doost with equall insight see
The ods twist both, of both then deem aright,
And chuse the better of them both to thee;
But thanks to him that it deserves behight@:
    To Nenna first, that first this worke created,
    And next to Iones, that truely it translated.

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for his epic poem 'The Faerie Queene,' one of the longest poems in the English language and the prime example of the Elizabethan allegorical tradition. He was born in London and educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. His career included positions in the Irish government, and his writing was deeply influenced by the politics and culture of Elizabethan England. He passed away in 1599 in London.

Edmund Spenser

Prothalamion: Or, A Spousall Verse

Edmund Spenser, Simple Poetry

Sonnet IV*.

Edmund Spenser, Simple Poetry

Sonnet I*.

Edmund Spenser, Simple Poetry

English

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Sonnet IV*.

The antique Babel, empresse of the East,
Upreard her buildinges to the threatned skie:
And second Babell, tyrant of the West,
Her ayry towers upraised much more high.
But with the weight of their own surquedry**
They both are fallen, that all the earth did feare,
And buried now in their own ashes ly,
Yet shewing, by their heapes, how great they were.
But in their place doth now a third appeare,
Fayre Venice, flower of the last worlds delight;
And next to them in beauty draweth neare,
But farre exceedes in policie of right.
    Yet not so fayre her buildinges to behold
    As Lewkenors stile that hath her beautie told.

Edmund Spenser

Sonnet III*.

Upon the Historie of George Castriot, alias Scanderbeg, King of the Epirots, translated into English.

Wherefore doth vaine Antiquitie so vaunt
Her ancient monuments of mightie peeres,
And old heröes, which their world did daunt
With their great deedes and fild their childrens eares?
Who, rapt with wonder of their famous praise,
Admire their statues, their colossoes great,
Their rich triumphall arcks which they did raise,
Their huge pyrámids, which do heaven threat.
Lo! one, whom later age hath brought to light,
Matchable to the greatest of those great;
Great both by name, and great in power and might,
And meriting a meere** triumphant seate.
    The scourge of Turkes, and plague of infidels,
    Thy acts, O Scanderbeg, this volume tels.

Edmund Spenser

Sonnet I*.

To the right worshipfull, my singular good frend, M. Gabriell Harvey, Doctor of the Lawes.

Harvey, the happy above happiest men
I read**; that, sitting like a looker-on
Of this worldes stage, doest note with critique pen
The sharpe dislikes of each condition:
And, as one carelesse of suspition,
Ne fawnest for the favour of the great,
Ne fearest foolish reprehension
Of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat:
But freely doest of what thee list entreat,@
Like a great lord of peerelesse liberty,
Lifting the good up to high Honours seat,
And the evill damning evermore to dy:
For life and death is in thy doomeful writing;
So thy renowme lives ever by endighting.


Dublin, this xviij. of July, 1586.

Your devoted friend, during life,

Edmund Spenser

Sonnet To Spenser

Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,
Did last eve ask my promise to refine
Some English that might strive thine ear to please.
But Elfin Poet 'tis impossible
For an inhabitant of wintry earth
To rise like Phoebus with a golden quill
Fire-wing'd and make a morning in his mirth.
It is impossible to escape from toil
O' the sudden and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the soil
Before it can put forth its blossoming:
Be with me in the summer days, and I
Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.

John Keats

Sonnet XLIX. On The Use Of New And Old Words In Poetry.

While with false pride, and narrow jealousy,
    Numbers reject each new expression, won,
    Perchance, from language richer than our own,
    O! with glad welcome may the POET see
Extension's golden vantage! the decree
    Each way exclusive, scorn, and re-enthrone
    The obsolete, if strength, or grace of tone
    Or imagery await it, with a free,
And liberal daring! - For the Critic Train,
    Whose eyes severe our verbal stores review,
    Let the firm Bard require that they explain
Their cause of censure; then in balance true
    Weigh it; but smile at the objections vain
    Of sickly Spirits, hating for they do[1]!

1: The particle for is used in the same sense with because, by Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher.

"...

Anna Seward

The Visions Of Petrarch:

FORMERLY TRANSLATED.
[Footnote: The first six of these sonnets are translated (not directly, but through the French of Clement Marot) from Petrarch's third Canzone in Morte di Laura. The seventh is by the translator. The circumstance that the version is made from Marot renders it probable that these sonnets are really by Spenser. C.]


I.

Being one day at my window all alone,
So manie strange things happened me to see,
As much it grieveth me to thinke thereon.
At my right hand a hynde appear'd to mee.
So faire as mote the greatest god delite;
Two eager dogs did her pursue in chace,
Of which the one was blacke, the other white.
With deadly force so in their cruell race
They pincht the haunches of that gentle beast,
That at the last, and in short time, I spide,

Edmund Spenser