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

www.TaleBooks.comWe see his parts, so soone as they do sever,To lose their heat and shortly to decay;So makes himself his owne consuming pray;Ne any living creatures doth he breed,But all that are of others bredd doth slay;And with their death his cruell life dooth feed;Nought leaving but their barren ashes without seede.XXV. "Thus all these fower (the which the groundwork beeOf all the world and of all living wights)To thousand sorts of Change we subject see:Yet are they chang'd (by other wondrous slights)Into themselves, and lose their native mights;The Fire to Ayre, and th' Ayre to Water sheere,And Water into Earth; yet Water fightsWith Fire, and Ayre with Earth, approaching neere:Yet all are in one body, and as one appeare.XXVI. "So in them all raignes Mutabilitie;How-ever these, that Gods themselves do call,Of them do claime the rule and soverainty;As Vesta, of the fire aethereall;Vulcan, of this with us so usuall;Ops, of the earth; and Juno, of the ayre;Neptune, of seas; and Nymphes, of Rivers all:For all those Rivers to me subject are,And all the rest, which they usurp, be all my share.XXVII. "Which to approven true, as I have told,Vouchsafe, O Goddesse! to thy presence callThe rest which doe the world in being hold;As times and seasons of the yeare that fall:Of all the which demand in generall,Or judge thyselfe, by verdit of thine eye,Whether to me they are not subject all."Nature did yeeld thereto; and by-and-byBade Order call them all before her Majesty.XXVIII. So forth issew'd the Seasons of the yeare.First, lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowresThat freshly budded and new bloosmes did beare,(In which a thousand birds had built their bowresThat sweetly sung to call forth Paramours)And in his hand a javelin he did beare,And on his head (as fit for warlike stoures)A guilt engraven morion he did weare;That as some did him love, so others did him feare.XXIX. Then came the jolly Sommer, being dightIn a thin silken cassock coloured greene,That was unlyned all, to be more light;And on his head a girlond well beseeneHe wore, from which, as he had chauffed been,The sweat did drop; and in his hand he borePage 728 , Faerie Queene, The - Edmund Spenser