Amoretti XXIII: Penelope for her Ulisses sake

By Edmund Spenser
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 again unreave:
Such subtile craft my Damzell doth conceave,
Th’ importune suit of my desire to shonne:
For all that I in many dayes doo 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 fruitless worke is broken with least wynd.

Copyright Credit: Edmund Spenser, “Amoretti IV” from Amoretti and Epithalamion (London: W. Ponsonby, 1595): Public domain.
Source: Amoretti and Epithalamion (W. Ponsonby, 1595)