John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
271 Edmund Spenser 1552?-1599 John Bartlett
| NUMBER: | 271 |
| AUTHOR: | Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599) |
| QUOTATION: | Full little knowest thou that hast not tride, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To wast long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow. . . . . . . . . . To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; 1 To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne. Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end, That doth his life in so long tendance spend! |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Mother Hubberds Tale. Line 895. |
| Note 1. Eat not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them with vexatious cares.—Plutarch: Of the Training of Children. But suffered idleness To eat his heart away. Bryant: Homer’s Iliad, book i. line 319. [back] |