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The Works of Edmund Spenser

A Variorum Edition: Edited by Edwin Greenlaw: Charles Grosvenor Osgood: Frederick Morgan Padelford: Ray Heffner

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To the right Honourable the Earle of Ormond and Ossory.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


193

To the right Honourable the Earle of Ormond and Ossory.

Receiue most noble Lord a simple taste
Of the wilde fruit, which saluage soyl hath bred,
Which being through long wars left almost waste,
With brutish barbarisme is ouerspredd:
And in so faire a land, as may be redd,
Not one Parnassus, nor one Helicone
Left for sweete Muses to be harboured,
But where thy selfe hast thy braue mansione;
There in deede dwel faire Graces many one.
And gentle Nymphes, delights of learned wits,
And in thy person without Paragone
All goodly bountie and true honour sits,
Such therefore, as that wasted soyl doth yield,
Receiue dear Lord in worth, the fruit of barren field.