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The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 by Edmund Spenser
page 24 of 440 (05%)

"But Fame with golden wings aloft doth flie,
Above the reach of ruinous decay,
And with brave plumes doth beate the azure skie,
Admir'd of base-borne men from farre away:
Then who so will with vertuous deeds assay 425
To mount to heaven, on Pegasus must ride,
And with sweete Poets verse be glorifide.

"For not to have been dipt in Lethe lake,
Could save the sonne of Thetis from to die;
But that blinde bard did him immortall make 430
With verses dipt in deaw of Castalie:
Which made the Easterne conquerour to crie,
O fortunate yong man! whose vertue found
So brave a trompe thy noble acts to sound.

"Therefore in this halfe happie I doo read* 435
Good Melibae, that hath a poet got
To sing his living praises being dead,
Deserving never here to be forgot,
In spight of envie, that his deeds would spot:
Since whose decease, learning lies unregarded, 440
And men of armes doo wander unrewarded.
[* _Read_, consider]

"Those two be those two great calamities,
That long agoe did grieve the noble spright
Of Salomon with great indignities,
Who whilome was alive the wisest wight: 445
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