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Amoretti VIII: More then most faire, full of the living fire

By Edmund Spenser 1552–1599 Edmund Spenser

More then most faire, full of the living fire,

Kindled above unto the maker neere:

No eies but joyes, in which al powers conspire,

That to the world naught else be counted deare.

Thrugh your bright beams doth not the blinded guest

Shoot out his darts to base affections wound?

But Angels come to lead fraile mindes to rest

In chast desires on heavenly beauty bound.

You frame my thoughts and fashion me within,

You stop my toung, and teach my hart to speake,

You calme the storme that passion did begin,

Strong thrugh your cause, but by your vertue weak.

Dark is the world, where your light shined never;

Well is he borne, that may behold you ever.

Biography

To understand Edmund Spenser's place in the extraordinary literary renaissance that took place in England during the last two decades of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it is helpful to begin with the remarks of the foremost literary critic of the age, Sir Philip Sidney. In The Defence of Poetry, (1595), written in the early 1580s, Sidney looked back on the history of English literature and sees little to admire. He mentions the . . .

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