Poem by Edmund Spenser

Amoretti 30. My Love is lyke to yse, and I to fyre

My Love is lyke to yse, and I to fyre:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolv’d through my so hot desyre,
But harder growes the more I her intreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not delayd* by her hart-frosen cold,
But that I burne much more in boyling sweat,
And feele my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden yse,
And yse, which is congeald with sencelesse cold,
Should kindle fyre by wonderful devyse?
  Such is the powre of love in gentle mind,
  That it can alter all the course of kynd.

[* Delayd, tempered.] 

1. Amoretti 46. When my abodes prefixed time is spent
2. Amoretti 63. After long stormes and tempests sad assay
3. Amoretti 59. Thrise happie she that is so well assured
4. Amoretti 43. Shall I then silent be, or shall I speake?
5. Amoretti 49. Fayre Cruell! why are ye so fierce and cruell?

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