She tooke him streight full pitiously lamenting,
She wrapt him softly, all the while repenting
  That he the fly did mock. 
She drest his wound, and it embaulmed well 45
  With salve of soveraigne might;
And then she bath’d him in a dainty well,
  The well of deare delight. 
    Who would not oft be stung as this,
    To be so bath’d in Venus blis? 50

The wanton boy was shortly wel recured
  Of that his malady;
But he soone after fresh again enured*
  His former cruelty. 
And since that time he wounded hath my selfe 55
  With his sharpe dart of love,
And now forgets the cruell carelesse elfe
  His mothers heast** to prove. 
    So now I languish, till he please
    My pining anguish to appease. 60
[* Enured, practised.]
[** Heast, command.]

SONNETS

WRITTEN BY SPENSER,

COLLECTED FKOM THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS IN
WHICH THEY APPEARED.

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 SPENCER.

[* From “Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets especially touching Robert Greene, and other parties by him abused,” &c.  London, 1592.  TODD.] [** Read, consider.] [@ Entreat, treat.]

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.