Spenser Love Quotes & Sayings

All for love, and nothing for reward. — Edmund Spenser

The whiles some one did chaunt this louely lay;
Ah see, who so faire thing doest faine to see,
In springing flowre the image of thy day;
Ah see the Virgin Rose, how sweetly shee
Doth first peepe forth with bashfull modestee,
That fairer seemes, the lesse ye see her may;
Lo see soone after, how more bold and free
Her bared bosome she doth broad display;
Loe see soone after, how she fades, and falles away.

So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre,
Ne more doth flourish after first decay,
That earst was sought to decke both bed and bowre,
Of many a Ladie, and many a Paramowre:
Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime,
For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre:
Gather the Rose of love, whilest yet is time,
Whilest louing thou mayst loued be with equall crime. — Edmund Spenser

When we recall the great influence which Spenser's poetry has exerted on English poets who have lived and written since his day, we can clearly see how the two kinds of Platonism - a direct Platonism, and a Platonism long ago transmuted and worked right down into the emotions of common people by the passionate Christianity of the Dark and Middle Ages - combined to beget the infinite suggestiveness which is now contained in such words as 'love' and 'beauty'. Let us remember, then, that every time we abuse these terms, or use them too lightly, we are draining them of their power; every time a society journalist or a film producer exploits this vast suggestiveness to tickle a vanity or dignify a lust, he is squandering a great pile of spiritual capital which has been laid up by centuries of weary effort. — Owen Barfield

Nothing under heaven so strongly doth allure the sense of man, and all his mind possess, as beauty's love. — Edmund Spenser

Yet is there one more cursed than they all,
That canker-worm, that monster, jealousie,
Which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall,
Turning all love's delight to misery,
Through fear of losing his felicity. — Edmund Spenser

Plato understood love as a powerful engine that can destroy mankind or turn us to the good. Christ made that turn possible, and Spenser shows what can be done in the human soul if we take it. — John Mark Reynolds

Joy may you have and gentle hearts content
Of your loves couplement:
And let faire Venus, that is Queene of love,
With her heart-quelling Sonne upon you smile — Edmund Spenser

And all for love, and nothing for reward. — Edmund Spenser

So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought;
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. — Edmund Spenser

Ah! when will this long weary day have end,
And lende me leave to come unto my love?
- Epithalamion — Edmund Spenser

Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time. — Edmund Spenser

To be wise and eke to love,
Is granted scarce to gods above. — Edmund Spenser

Foul jealousy! that turnest love divine to joyless dread, and makest the loving heart with hateful thoughts to languish and to pine. — Edmund Spenser

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat? — Edmund Spenser

All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring
In goodly colours gloriously arrayed;
Go to my love, where she is careless laid — Edmund Spenser

Waking love suffereth no sleepe:
Say, that raging love dothe appall the weake stomacke:
Say, that lamenting love marreth the musicall. — Edmund Spenser

For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,
Which join together in sweet sympathy,
To work each other's joy and true content,
Which they have harbour'd since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see
And know each other here belov'd to be. — Edmund Spenser

You ask whether I have ever been in love: fool as I am, I am not such a fool as that. But if one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business. But though I have no personal experience of the things they call love, I have what is better - the experience of Sappho, of Euripides, of Catallus, of Shakespeare, of Spenser, of Austen, of Bronte, of anyone else I have read. — C.S. Lewis

Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime,
For none can call again the passed time. — Edmund Spenser

Not so (quoth he) love most aboundeth there.
For all the walls and windows there are writ,
All full of love, and love, and love my deare,
And all their talke and studie is of it.
Ne any there doth brave or valiant seeme,
Unlesse that some gay Mistresse badge he bears:
Ne any one himselfe doth ought esteeme,
Unlesse he swin in love up to the ears.
But they of love and of his sacred lere,
(As it should be) all otherwise devise,
Then we poore shepheards are accustomd here,
And him do sue and serve all otherwise.
For with lewd speeches and licentious deeds,
His mightie mysteries they do prophane,
And use his ydle name to other needs,
But as a complement for courting vaine.
So him they do not serve as they professe,
But make him serve to them for sordid uses,
Ah my dread Lord, that doest liege hearts possesse,
Avenge they selfe on them for their abuses. — Edmund Spenser

Hark, how the cheerful birds do chaunt their lays, and carol of love's praise. — Edmund Spenser

My Love Is Like To Ice, And I To Fire
My love is like to ice, and I to fire;
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolv'd through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not delay'd by her heart-frozen cold;
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold!
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice;
And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device!
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind. — Edmund Spenser

I hate the day, because it lendeth light
To see all things, but not my love to see. — Edmund Spenser

Fresh spring the herald of love's mighty king. — Edmund Spenser

All love is sweet Given or returned And its familiar voice wearies not ever. — Edmund Spenser

But as it falleth, in the gentlest hearts Imperious love hath highest set his throne, And tyrannizeth in the bitter smarts Of them, that to him buxom are and prone. — Edmund Spenser