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
fall men righteous-man
How many perils doe enfold The righteous man to make him daily fall.
beauty men shows
Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem, an outward show of things that only seem.
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
men evening states
Man's wretched state, That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late.
wise running men
For deeds to die, however nobly done, And thoughts of men to as themselves decay, But wise words taught in numbers for to run, Recorded by the Muses, live for ay.
blessed angel men
But O the exceeding grace Of highest God, that loves his creatures so, And all his works with mercy doth embrace, That blessed angels, he sends to and fro, To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.
wise men deceit
What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware, As to descry the crafty cunning train, By which deceit doth mask in visor fair, And cast her colours dyed deep in grain, To seem like truth, whose shape she well can feign, And fitting gestures to her purpose frame, The guiltless man with guile to entertain?
art men people
There learned arts do flourish in great honour And poets's wits are had in peerless price; Religion hath lay power, to rest upon her, Advancing virtue, and suppressing vice. For end all good, all grace there freely grows, Had people grace it gratefully to use: For God His gifts there plenteously bestows, But graceless men them greatly do abuse.
war men steel
Woe to the man that first did teach the cursed steel to bite in his own flesh, and make way to the living spirit!
men heaven mind
Nothing under heaven so strongly doth allure the sense of man, and all his mind possess, as beauty's love.
heart men air
A circle cannot fill a triangle, so neither can the whole world, if it were to be compassed, the heart of man; a man may as easily fill a chest with grace as the heart with gold. The air fills not the body, neither doth money the covetous mind of man.
firsts vain temper
In vain he seeketh others to suppress, Who hath not learn'd himself first to subdue.
nurse sin sluggish
Sluggish idleness--the nurse of sin.
spring cuckoos messengers
The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded.