Elizabethan English Poetry
Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Qveene
16th century, Elizabethan English deliberately archaistic. Numerous printed copies.
A year has now passed, but although I have searched everywhere for this Goddess, I cannot find her.
Prince Arthur gazes adoringly at the painted image of the Faerie Qveene on Sir Guyon’s shield, following a combat beside the Idle Lake.
Certes [certainly] (then said the Prince) I God avow, that sith [since] I armes and knighthood first did plight [declare my acceptance], my whole desire hath been, and yet is now, to serve that Queen with all my power and might. Now hath the Sunne with his lamp-burning light, walkt round about the world, and I no lesse, sith [since] of that Goddesse I have sought the sight, yet nowhere can her find...
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto IX.