Edmund Spenser Flower Quotations

Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.

All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring In goodly colours gloriously arrayed; Go to my love, where she is careless laid

Vain-glorious man, when fluttering wind does blow In his light wing's, is lifted up to sky; The scorn of-knighthood and true chivalry. To think, without desert of gentle deed And noble worth, to be advanced high, Such praise is shame, but honour, virtue's meed, Doth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed.

She bathed with roses red, And violets blew. And all the sweetest flowres That in the forrest grew.

So passeth, in the passing of a day, Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flower; No more doth flourish after first decay, That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower Of many a lady and many a paramour. Gather therefore the rose whilst yet in prime, For soon comes age that will her pride deflower. Gather the rose of love whilst yet in time, Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime.