THE FAERIE QUEENE by Edmund Spenser TO The ... - Planet.ee

www.TaleBooks.comFrom course of nature and of modestee?Sweete love such lewdnes bands from his faire companee.XLII. "But thine, my Deare, (welfare thy heart, my deare!)Though straunge beginning had, yet fixed isOn one that worthy may perhaps appeare;And certes seemes bestowed not amis:Joy thereof have thou and eternall blis!"With that, upleaning on her elbow weake,Her alablaster brest she soft did kis,Which all that while shee felt to pant and quake,As it an Earth-quake were: at last she thus bespake.XLIII. "Beldame, your words doe worke me litle ease;For though my love be not so lewdly bentAs those ye blame, yet may it nought appeaseMy raging smart, ne ought my flame relent,But rather doth my helpless griefe augment;For they, how ever shamefull and unkinde,Yet did possesse their horrible intent;Short end of sorrowes they therby did finde;So was their fortune good, though wicked were their minde.XLIV. "But wicked fortune mine, though minde be good,Can have no ende nor hope of my desire,But feed on shadowes whiles I die for food,And like a shadowe wexe, whiles with entireAffection I doe languish and expire.I, fonder then Cephisus foolish chyld,Who, having vewed in a fountaine shereHis face, was with the love thereof beguyld;I, fonder, love a shade, the body far exyld."XLV. "Nought like," (quoth shee) "for that same wretched boyWas of him selfe the ydle Paramoure,Both love and lover, without hope of joy,For which he faded to a watry flowre:But better fortune thine, and better howre,Which lov'st the shadow of a warlike knight;No shadow but a body hath in powre:That body, wheresoever that it light,May learned be by cyphers, or by Magicke might.XLVI. "But if thou may with reason yet represseThe growing evill, ere it strength have gott,And thee abandond wholy do possesse,Against it strongly strive, and yield thee nottTil thou in open fielde adowne be smott:But if the passion mayster thy fraile might,So that needs love or death must bee thy lott,Then, I avow to thee, by wrong or rightTo compas thy desire, and find that loved knight."XLVII. Her chearefull words much cheard the feeble sprightOf the sicke virgin, that her downe she laydPage 280 , Faerie Queene, The - Edmund Spenser