Spenserian Stanza

One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Sand 

Edmund Spenser

  1. (a)  One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
  2. (b)  But came the waves and washed it away:
  3. (a)  Again I wrote it with a second hand,
  4. (b)  But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
  5. (b)  Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
  6. (c)  A mortal thing so to immortalize!
  7. (b)  For I myself shall like to this decay,
  8. (c)  And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
  9. (c)  Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
  10. (d)  To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
  11. (c)  My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
  12. (d)  And in the heavens write your glorious name;
  13. (e)  Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
  14. (e)  Our love shall live, and later life renew.

 

The first stanza of The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser

Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,

As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds,

Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,

For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,

And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;

Whose prayses having slept in silence long,

Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds

To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:

Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song.

 

The First Verse of The Eve of St. Agnes

John Keats

St. Agnes Eve–Ah, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told

His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

 

Also see:

Others include:

Leave a comment