Edmund Spencer

One question can trigger intfinate answers. Edmund Spencer began his sonnet with the question of how he can love one person so greatly. "My love is like to ice, and I to fire; How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat?" Spencer uses ice and rain as personification of himself and his lover. A perfect way to describe how different, yet alike they are.


However, his love may be infitnate but is not recieve. For the love of his world does not feel the same. Her heart is distant and cold. Yet, his love for her is stronger than ever. "Or how comes it that my exceeding heat. Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, And feel my flames augmented manifold?" The love is so powerful, Spencer compares it to fire. To show how much affection he has for this one person.



Her heart has no place for Spencer, and yet his love burns inside him more and more as each day rolls by. "What more miraculous thing may be told. That fire which all thing melts, should harden ice,And ice which is congealed with senseless cold, Should kindle fire by wonderful device?" For endless amount he sends and recieve nothing in return. Does this prevent the love sicken puppy?


If you give love you will gain peace. There is always hope. "Such is the power of love in gentle mind, That it can alter all the course of kind." Love is a mighty force. I firmly believe love can alter nature's intended way. And this is what Spencer is showing the world with this sonnet.