Poem by Edmund Spenser

Amoretti 23. Penelope, for her Ulisses sake

Penelope, for her Ulisses sake,
Deviz’d a web her wooers to deceave;
In which the worke that she all day did make,
The same at night she did againe unreave.
Such subtile craft my damzell doth conceave,
Th’importune suit of my desire to shonne:
For all that I in many dayes do weave,
In one short houre I find by her undonne.
So when I thinke to end that I begonne,
I must begin and never bring to end:
For with one looke she spils that long I sponne,
And with one word my whole years work doth rend.
  Such labour like the spyders web I fynd,
  Whose fruitlesse worke is broken with least wynd. 

1. Amoretti 46. When my abodes prefixed time is spent
2. Amoretti 13. In that proud port which her so goodly graceth
3. Amoretti 69. The famous warriors of the anticke world
4. Amoretti 42. The love which me so cruelly tormenteth
5. Amoretti 18. The rolling wheele that runneth often round

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