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 10. Unrighteous Lord of love, what law is this
2. Amoretti 61. The glorious image of the Makers beautie
3. Amoretti 24. When I behold that beauties wonderment
4. Amoretti 80. After so long a race as I have run
5. Amoretti 52. So oft as homeward I from her depart

Print

3855 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version