4. =the Bridge.= The heads of traitors were displayed on London Bridge.

"How inferior is this passage," says Dr. Dodd, "to Milton's animated

description of the wild ceremonies of Moloch, which Dryden, however,

seems to have here had in mind." See "Ode on the Nativity," stanza

xxiii.

5. The simile in this stanza was doubtless intended to be very

effective.

6. =key.= Quay. A bank, or ledge.

7. =Simois.= See Homer's "Iliad," Bk. XXI.

8. =gross.= Bulk.

REASON AND RELIGION.

[FROM "RELIGIO LAICI."]

Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars

To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers,

Is Reason to the soul: and as on high,

Those rolling fires discover but the sky,

Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray

Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,

But guide us upward to a better day.

And as those nightly tapers disappear,

When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;

So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight;

So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.

Some few whose light shone brighter, have been led

From cause to cause, to nature's secret head;

And found that one first principle must be,

But what, or who, that Universal HE;

Whether some soul incompassing this ball,

Unmade, unmov'd, yet making, moving all,

Or various atoms' interfering dance

Leap'd into form, the noble work of chance,

Or this great All was from eternity--

Not even the Stagirite himself could see,

And Epicurus guess'd as well as he;

As blindly groped they for a future state,

As rashly judged of providence and fate.

In this wild maze their vain endeavors end:

How can the less the greater comprehend?

Or finite Reason reach Infinity?

For what could fathom God were more than He.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

JOHN DRYDEN was born on the 9th of August, 1631, at Aldwincle All

Saints, near Oundle in Northamptonshire. He was educated at Westminster

School, under the famous Dr. Busby, and at Trinity College, Cambridge.

At the age of twenty-six he went up to London with the intention of

devoting himself to literature and politics. During the brief remaining

years of the Commonwealth (1657-1660) he was nominally a friend to the

Puritan party; and one of the first poems written by him was a series of

"Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Oliver Cromwell." At the Restoration he

at once espoused the cause of the Royalists; and his recent panegyric on

the Protector did not prevent him from writing a poem, "Astræa Redux,"

in honor of the return of Charles the Second. In 1663 he married the

Lady Elizabeth Howard, a daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, a Royalist

nobleman. For several years he devoted himself chiefly to the writing of

plays,--comedies, tragedies, and tragi-comedies. The comedies he wrote

in prose; the earliest tragedies in blank verse, followed by several in

rhyme, and, after these, others in blank verse. In 1670 he was appointed

Poet-Laureate. In 1681, when nearly fifty years old, by the publication

of "Absalom and Achitophel," he suddenly became famous as a satirical

poet. He soon afterwards wrote "The Medal," another satire, directed

against the Earl of Shaftesbury, and "Mac Flecknoe," aimed at Shadwell,

the chief poet of the Opposition. At about the same time he produced

"Religio Laici," a didactic poem explaining his religious opinions and

defending the Church of England against dissenters, atheists, and

Catholics. Not long after the accession of James II., Dryden, true to

his policy of being always on the side of the ruling party, became a

Catholic, and wrote "The Hind and the Panther," in which he eulogized

many things that, in the former poem, he had ridiculed. His political

career ended with the overthrow of James II., in 1688; but his literary

activity continued unabated. The last years of his life were occupied in

translating the works of Persius and Juvenal and the Æneid of Virgil. In

1697 he wrote "Alexander's Feast"; and his "modernizations" of some of

Chaucer's poems appeared in 1700, the year of his death.

"If there is grandeur in the pomp of kings and the march of hosts," says

A. W. Ward, "in the 'trumpet's loud clangor' and in tapestries and

carpetings of velvet and gold, Dryden is to be ranked with the grandest

of English poets. The irresistible impetus of an invective which never

falls short or flat, and the savor of a satire which never seems dull or

stale, give him an undisputed place among the most glorious of English

wits."

"His descriptive power was of the highest," says Hales. "Our literature

has in it no more vigorous portrait-gallery than that he has bequeathed

it. His power of expression is beyond praise. There is always a singular

_fitness_ in his language: he uses always the right word. He is one of

our greatest masters of metre: metre was, in fact, no restraint to him,

but rather it seems to have given him freedom. It has been observed that

he argues better in verse than in prose; verse was the natural costume

of his thoughts."

Professor Masson says: "Not only is Dryden the largest figure in one era

of our literature: he is a very considerable figure also in our

literature as a whole. Of all that he wrote, however, there is but a

comparatively small portion that has won for itself a permanent place in

our literature."

=Other Poems to be Read:= Absalom and Achitophel; Mac Flecknoe; Religio

Laici; Threnodia Augustalis.

REFERENCES: Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_; Hazlitt's _English Poets_;

Lowell's _Among My Books_; Macaulay's _Essay on John Dryden_; Taine's

_English Literature_; Masson's _Three Devils and Other Essays_;

Thackeray's _English Humorists_.

John Milton.

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.

I.

This is the month, and this the happy morn,

Wherein the Son of Heav'ns eternal King,

Of wedded Maid and Virgin mother born,

Our great redemption from above did bring:

For so the holy Sages once did sing:

That he our deadly forfeit should release,{1}

And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II.

The glorious form, that light unsufferable,

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

Wherewith he wont{2} at Heav'ns high council-table

To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and, here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.{3}

III.

Say, heav'nly muse, shall not thy sacred vein

Afford a present to the Infant God?

Hast thou no vers, no hymn, or solemn strein

To welcome him to this his new abode

Now while the Heav'n by the suns team untrod

Hath took no print of the approaching light,

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV.

See how from far upon the eastern rode

The star-led Wisards{4} haste with odours sweet;

O run, prevent{5} them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;

Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,

And join thy voice unto the angel quire,{6}

From out his secret altar toucht with hallow'd fire.

THE HYMN.

I.

It was the winter wilde

While the Heav'n-born childe

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

Nature in aw of him

Had doff't her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize:

It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun her lusty paramour.{7}

II.

Onely with speeches fair

She woo's the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,

And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinfull blame,

The saintly veil of maiden{8} white to throw:

Confounded that her Makers eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

III.

But he, her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-eyed Peace,

She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding

Down through the turning sphear,{9}

His ready harbinger,{10}

With turtle{11} wing the amorous clouds dividing,

And, waving wide her mirtle wand,

She strikes a universall peace{12} through sea and land.

IV.

No war, or battails sound,

Was heard the world around;

The idle spear and shield were high up hung;

The hooked chariot{13} stood

Unstain'd with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;

And kings sate still with awfull eye,{14}

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

V.

But peacefull was the night

Wherein the Prince of Light

His raign of peace upon the earth began;

The windes, with wonder whist,{15}

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joyes to the milde ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

VI.

The stars, with deep amaze,

Stand fixt in stedfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influence,{16}

And will not take their flight

For{17} all the morning light

Or Lucifer{18} that often warn'd them thence;

But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

Untill their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

VII.

And, though the shady Gloom

Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferiour flame

The new-enlightn'd world no more should need;

He saw a greater sun appear

Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree{19} could bear.

VIII.

The shepherds on the lawn{20}

Or ere{21} the point of dawn

Sate simply chatting in a rustick row;

Full little thought they than

That the mighty Pan{22}

Was kindly com to live with them below;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly{23} thoughts so busie keep.

IX.

When such musick sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet

As never was by mortall finger strook,{24}

Divinely warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise{25}

As all their souls in blissfull rapture took;

The air, such pleasure loth to lose,

With thousand echo's still prolongs each heav'nly close.{26}

X.

Nature that heard such sound

Beneath the hollow round{27}

Of Cynthia's seat the airy region thrilling,

Now was almost won

To think her part was don,

And that her raign had here its{28} last fulfilling;

She knew such harmony alone

Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union.

XI.

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

That with long beams the shame-fac't Night array'd;

The helmed Cherubim,{29}

The sworded Seraphim

Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaied,

Harping in loud and solemn quire

With unexpressive{30} notes to Heav'n's new-born Heir.

XII.

Such musick (as 'tis said)

Before was never made

But when of old the sons of Morning sung,{31}

While the Creator great

His constellation set,

And the well-ballanc't world on hinges{32} hung,

And cast the dark foundations deep,

And bid the weltring{33} waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII.

Ring out, ye crystall sphears;{34}

Once bless our humane ears

(If ye have power to touch our senses so),

And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time,

And let the base of Heav'ns deep organ blow,

And with your ninefold harmony

Make up full consort{35} to th' angelike symphony.

XIV.

For, if such holy song

Enwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back and fetch the age of Gold;{36}

And speckl'd Vanity

Will sicken soon and die,

And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould;{37}

And Hell itself will pass away,

And leave her{38} dolorous mansions to the peering day.

XV.

Yea, Truth and Justice then

Will down return to men,

Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,

Mercy will set between,

Thron'd in celestiall sheen,

With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing;

And Heav'n, as at som festivall,

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.{39}

XVI.

But wisest Fate sayes no;

This must not yet be so;

The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy,

That on the bitter cross{40}

Must redeem our loss,

So both himself and us to glorifie;

Yet first to those ychain'd{41} in sleep

The wakefull trump{42} of doom must thunder through the deep.

XVII.

With such a horrid clang

As on Mount Sinai rang,{43}

While the red fire and smould'ring clouds out brake;

The aged Earth, agast,

With terrour of that blast,

Shall from the surface to the center shake;

When at the worlds last session{44}

The dreadfull Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII.

And then at last our bliss

Full and perfect is,

But now begins; for from this happy day,

Th' old Dragon{45} under ground,

In straiter limits bound,

Not half so far casts his usurped sway;

And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,

Swindges{46} the scaly horrour of his foulded tail.

XIX.

The oracles are dumm;{47}

No voice or hideous humm

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.

Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos{48} leaving.

No nightly trance, or breathed spell,

Inspires the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell.

XX.

The lonely mountains o'er

And the resounding shore

A voice of weeping{49} heard and loud lament;

From haunted spring and dale

Edged with poplar pale

The parting{50} Genius is with sighing sent;

With floure-inwov'n tresses torn

The nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

XXI.

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth{51}

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint

In urns and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamins{52} at their service quaint

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar power forgoes{53} his wonted seat.

XXII.

Peor and Baälim{54}

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twise batter'd god{55} of Palestine;

And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heav'ns queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers holy shine;

The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn;{56}

XXIII.

And sullen Moloch, fled,

Hath left in shadows dred{57}

His burning idol all of blackest hue;

In vain with cymbals ring

They call the grisly{58} King

In dismall dance about the furnace blue;

The brutish{59} gods of Nile as fast,

Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis last.

XXIV.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green

Trampling the unshowr'd grass{60} with lowings loud,

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest;

Naught but profoundest hell can be his shroud;

In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark.

XXV.

He feels from Judas land

The dredded Infants hand;

The rayes of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;{61}

Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands controul the damned crew.

XXVI.

So, when the Sun in bed,{62}

Curtain'd with cloudy red

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to th' infernal jail;

Each fetter'd ghost slips to his severall grave;

And the yellow-skirted Fayes

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.

XXVII.

But see the Virgin blest

Hath laid her Babe to rest;

Time is our tedious song should here have ending;

Heav'ns youngest teemed{63} star

Hath fixt her polish'd car,

Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;

And all about the courtly stable

Bright-harness'd angels sit in order serviceable.{64}

NOTES.

This poem was begun by Milton on Christmas day, 1629. He had then just

completed his twenty-first year, and was still an undergraduate at

Christ's College, Cambridge. From certain fragments and other evidence,

it is believed that he contemplated writing a series of poems on great

Christian events in a similar way. This is the first poem of importance

which he wrote. Hallam speaks of it as perhaps the finest lyric of its

kind in the English language. "A grandeur, a simplicity, a breadth of

manner, an imagination at once elevated and restrained by the subject,

reign throughout it. If Pindar is a model of lyric poetry, it would be

hard to name any other ode so truly Pindaric; but more has naturally

been derived from the Scriptures."

1. =our deadly forfeit should release.= Should remit the penalty of death

pronounced against us. Shakespeare has a similar use of the word

"forfeit."

"Thy slanders I forgive, and therewithal

Remit thy other forfeits."

--_Measure for Measure_, Act v, sc. 1.

2. =wont.= The past tense of the A.-S. verb _wunian_, to persist, to

continue, to be accustomed. Now used only in connection with some form

of the auxiliary verb _be_.

3. Explain the meaning of each word in this line, and of the whole line.

The next two stanzas comprise an invocation to the Muse of Poetry. See

note 1, page 153.

4. =Wisards.= Wizards. Wise men. The word was originally used in this

sense, and not with the depreciatory meaning of "magician," as at

present. Spenser says:

"Therefore the antique wizards well invented

That Venus of the fomy sea was bred,"

meaning by "antique wizards" ancient philosophers.

5. =prevent.= Go before; the original meaning of the word, from Lat.

_præ_, before, and _venio_, to go or come.

"I prevented the dawning of the morning."--_Psalm_ cxix. 147.

"I will have nothing to hinder me in the morning, for I will

prevent the sun rising."--_Izaak Walton_, _Compleat Angler_.

6. =angel quire.= "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of

the heavenly host praising God."--_Luke_ ii, 13.

7. =paramour.= See note 9, page 80.

8. =maiden.= Pure, innocent, unpolluted. Compare

"When I am dead, strew me o'er

With maiden flowers."

--_Shakespeare_, _Henry VIII_, Act iv, sc. 2.

9. =turning sphear.= The Ptolemaic system of astronomy taught that the

earth was the centre of the universe, and that all the heavenly bodies

revolved about it, being fixed in a complicated framework, or series of

hollow crystalline spheres moving one within the other. The "turning

sphear" is here this entire system of revolving spheres. See note 34,

below.

10. =harbinger.= One who provides a resting-place for a superior person.

It was the duty of the king's harbinger, when the court removed from one

place to another, to provide lodgings for the king's retinue. Derived

from _harbor_, _harborage_. The word "harbor" is from A.-S. _here_,

army, and _beorg_, a refuge. Others derive the word from _har_, a

message, and _bringer_--hence, one who brings a message, a herald.

Parkes's _Topography of Hampstead_, 1818, contains the following:

"The office of harbinger still exists in the Royal Household, the

nominal duty of the officer being to ride one stage onward before the

king on his progress, to provide lodging and provision for the court."

The last knight-harbinger was Sir Henry Rycroft (appointed in 1816, died

October, 1846, aged eighty). The office became extinct at his death.

11. =turtle.= Commonly _turtle-dove_. For history of the word as now

applied to the tortoise, see Worcester's Dictionary.

12. =universall peace.= About the time of the birth of Christ there was

peace throughout the Roman Empire, and the temple of Janus was shut.

13. =hooked chariot.= The war-chariot armed with scythes, a Celtic

invention adopted by the Romans.

14. =awfull eye.= We would say, "awe-filled eyes."

=sovran.= Old French _souverain_. Some derive it from Lat. _supra_, above,

and _regno_, to reign.

15. =whist.= Hushed. This word, now used as a sort of interjection

commanding silence, seems to have had in earlier English more of a

verbal meaning, as Spenser in "The Faerie Queene," VII, vii, 59:

"So was the Titaness put downe and whist."

It also meant _to keep silent_, as in Surrey's "Virgil":

"They whisted all, with fixed face intent."

A game of cards in which the players are supposed to keep silent is

called whist.

=birds of calm.= Halcyons. See note 1, page 78.

16. =influence.= From Lat. _in_, into, and _fluo_, to flow. This word,

until a comparatively modern date, was always used with respect to the

supposed mysterious rays or aspects flowing from the stars to the earth,

and thus having a strange power over the fortunes of men. "Canst thou

bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?"--_Job_ xxviii. 31.

"Happy constellations on that hour

Shed their selectest influences."

--_Paradise Lost_, VIII, 512.

17. =For.= Notwithstanding.

18. =Lucifer.= The morning star. The idea of Lucifer appearing to warn the

stars of the approach of the sun is a happy figure. See note 7, page 80.

19. =axle-tree.= Axis. _Tree_ in O. E. is used to signify beam. We still

have _single-tree_, _double-tree_, _whiffle-tree_, etc. Compare "Comus,"

95:

"The gilded car of day

His glowing axle doth allay."

20. =lawn.= Used in its original sense of a pasture, or open, grassy

space. Formerly _laund_. Similarly we have _lane_, an open passage

between houses or fields.

21. =Or ere.= _Or_ is here used in its old sense, meaning _before_, from

A.-S. _ær_. _Ere_ = e'er, ever. Compare Ecclesiastes xii. 6: "Or ever

the silver cord be loosed." Also "King Lear," Act ii, sc. 4:

"But this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws

Or ere I'll weep."

22. =Pan.= See note, page 72. The application of the name _Pan_ to Christ

is evidently derived from Spenser. See "Shepheards Calendar," July:

"And such, I ween, the brethren were

That came from Canaän,

The brethren Twelve, that kept yfere

The flocks of mightie Pan."

In the Glosse to the Calendar for May it is said that "Great Pan is

Christ, the very God of all shepheards, which calleth himselfe the great

and good shepheard. The name is most rightly (methinks) applied to him;

for Pan signifieth all, or omnipotent, which is only the Lord Iesus. And

by that name (as I remember) he is called of Eusebius in his fifth

booke, _De Preparat. Evange._"

23. =silly.= From A.-S. _saelig_, blessed, happy. Spenser uses the word in

the sense of innocent, as in "Faerie Queene," III, viii, 27:

"The silly virgin strove him to withstand."

Chaucer, in the "Reves Tale," uses it in the more modern sense of

simple, or foolish:

"These sely clerkes han ful fast yronne."

But in the "Legend of Good Women" it has another meaning:

"O sely woman, full of innocence."

The meaning of this word has completely changed.

24. =strook.= Caused to sound as on a stringed instrument. Compare Dryden

in "Alexander's Feast":

"Now strike the golden lyre again."

25. =noise.= A company of musicians under a leader. Used in this sense by

both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

26. =close.= Cadence. See Dryden, "Fables":

"At every _close_ she made, th' attending throng

Replied, and bore the burden of the song."

27. =hollow round.= The sphere in which the moon has its motion. See notes

9 and 34.

=Cynthia.= The moon. In the ancient mythology applied to Artemis, from

Mount Cynthus in the island of Delos, her birthplace.

28. =its.= In all his poetry, Milton uses this word only three times. The

other examples are in "Paradise Lost," I, 254, and IV, 814. This

possessive form of the pronoun it was never used until the time of

Shakespeare, who employs it five times in "A Winter's Tale," and once in

"Measure for Measure"; it does not occur anywhere in the authorized

version of the Bible.

29. Why are the Cherubim "helmed," while the Seraphim are "sworded"?

Addison says, "Some of the rabbins tell us that the cherubims are a set

of angels who know most, and the seraphims a set of angels who love

most." Observe that the plural of cherub or of seraph may be formed in

three ways: viz. cherubs, cherubim, cherubims; seraphs, seraphim,

seraphims.

30. =unexpressive.= Inexpressible. See Shakespeare, "As You Like It":

"The fair, the chaste, the unexpressive she."

Also Milton, "Lycidas," 176:

"And hears the unexpressive nuptiall song."

31. =the sons of Morning sung.= See Job xxxviii. 4-7, the oldest reference

to the "music of the spheres." See note 34, below.

32. =hinges.= Literally, a hinge is anything for hanging something upon.

From A.-S. _hangian_.

33. =weltring.= Rolling, wallowing. See "Lycidas," 13.

34. =Ring out.= An allusion to the music of the spheres. See note 27,

above. The theory of Pythagoras was that the distances between the

heavenly bodies were determined by the laws of musical concord. "These

orbs in their motion could not but produce a certain sound or note,

depending upon their distances and velocities; and as these were

regulated by harmonic laws, they necessarily formed as a whole a

complete musical scale." "In the whorl of the distaff of necessity there

are eight concentric whorls. These whorls represent respectively the sun

and moon, the five planets, and the fixed stars. On each whorl sits a

siren singing. Their eight tones make one exquisite harmony." Milton

added a ninth whorl,--"that swift nocturnal and diurnal rhomb,"--and

then spoke of the "ninefold harmony," as just below. This was a favorite

idea with the poets.

"Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,

Listening the lordly music flowing from

The illimitable years."

--_Tennyson_, _Ode to Memory_.

"The music of the spheres! list, my Mariana!"

--_Shakespeare_, _Pericles_, Act v, sc. 1.

"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st

But in his motion like an angel sings

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims."

--_Shakespeare_, _Merchant of Venice_, Act v, sc. 1.

"If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,

How would he wish that Heaven had left him still

The whispering zephyr and the purling rill!"

--_Pope_, _Essay on Man_, I.

"Her voice, the music of the spheres,

So loud, it deafens mortals' ears,

As wise philosophers have thought,

And that's the cause we hear it not."

--_Butler's Hudibras_, II, i, 617.

See, also, Montaigne, _Essays_, I, xxii; Sir Thomas Browne's _Religio

Medici_, II, 9; Plato's _Republic_, VI; Dryden's "Ode to Mrs. Anne

Killigrew," etc.

35. =consort.= Accompaniment. This word, so written until Milton's time,

has now given place to _concert_, whenever used as here.

36. =age of Gold.= The fabled primeval age of universal happiness.

"A blisful lyfe, a peseable, and so swete,

Ledde the peplis in the former age."--_Chaucer._

37. =mould.= Matter, substance. The word is used in the old Romances to

denote the earth itself. Milton elsewhere says:

"Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould

Breathe such divine, enchanting ravishment?"

38. =her.= Observe what has already been said (note 28, above) about the

pronoun _its_. _Hell_, in the Anglo-Saxon language, is feminine. But,

just above, observe the expression _it self_. See, in the last line of

stanza xv, the pronoun _her_ with _heaven_ as its antecedent. _Heofon_,

in the Anglo-Saxon, is also feminine.

39. This stanza is a fine example of word-painting. What idea is

conveyed to your mind by the expressions, "orb'd in a rainbow," "like

glories wearing," "thron'd in celestiall sheen," "the tissued clouds

down stearing," etc.? What kind of glories will Mercy wear? Where will

she sit? How will she be enthroned? What are _radiant_ feet? Why are

Mercy's feet radiant? Does she steer the tissued clouds "with radiant

feet," or does she steer herself down the tissued clouds? Why will the

opening of Heaven's high palace wall be "as at some festivall"?

40. =bitter cross.= Compare Shakespeare, "1 Henry IV," Act i, sc. 1, 27:

"Those blessed feet

Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd

For our advantage, on the bitter cross."

41. =ychain'd.= The _y_ is a corruption of the prefix _ge_, anciently used

in connection with the past participle, and still retained in many

German words. Often used by Chaucer and Spenser, as in yblessed,

yburied, ybrent, yfonden, ygeten, yclad, yfraught, etc.

42. =trump.= "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,

with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead

in Christ shall rise first."--_1 Thessalonians_ iv. 16.

=wakefull.= Awakening.

43. =rang.= See Exodus xix.

44. =session.= Assize. Both words were originally from the same root, Lat.

_sedeo_, _sessum_.

=spread.= Prepare, make ready. A similar use of the word survives in the

idiom "to spread the table."

45. =Dragon.= See Revelation xii. 9.

46. =Swindges.= Swings about violently. This is the only case in which

Milton uses this word. It is used several times by Shakespeare in the

sense of _to whip_, _to scourge_.

47. =oracles are dumm.= Keightly says: "This was a frequent assertion of

the Fathers, who ascribed to the coming of Christ what was the effect of

time. They regarded the ancient oracles as having been the inspiration

of the devil."

Spenser, quoting the story which Plutarch relates in "his Booke of the

ceasing of miracles," says, "For at that time, as hee sayth, all Oracles

surceased, and enchaunted spirites that were woont to delude the people

thenceforth held their peace."--_Glosse to Shepheards Calendar, May._

48. =Delphos.= The mediæval form of the word _Delphi_. The temple where

was the chief oracle of Apollo was at Delphi, built at the foot of a

precipitous cliff two thousand feet high. This oracle was suppressed by

the Emperor Theodosius.

49. =weeping.= Compare Matthew ii. 19, and Jeremiah xxxi. 15.

Spenser, in the same _Glosse_, quoted from above, says, "About the same

time that our Lorde suffered his most bitter passion for the redemption

of man, certaine persons sailing from Italie to Cyprus and passing by

certaine iles called Paxæ, heard a voice calling aloud Thamus, Thamus,

(now Thamus was the name of an Egyptian which was pylote of the ship),

who, giving ear to the crie, was bidden, when he came to Palodes to tell

that great Pan was dead: which hee doubting to doe, yet for that when

hee came to Palodes, there suddenly was such a calme of winde that the

ship stoode still in the sea unmooved, he was forced to crie aloude that

Pan was dead: wherewithall there was heard such piteous outcries, and

dreadfull shriking as hath not beene the like."

50. =parting.= Departing. Frequently used in Old English.

=Genius.= Spirit. See "Lycidas," 182:

"Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore."

51. =consecrated earth--holy hearth.= Referring to the places specially

haunted by the Lars and Lemures. The Lemures were the spirits of the

dead, and were said to wander about at night, frightening the living.

The Lares were the household gods, sometimes referred to as the spirits

of good men. The former frequented the graveyards; the latter, the

hearths.

52. =Flamins.= Priests.

53. =forgoes.= Goes from, gives up, abandons.

54. =Peor and Baälim.= Compare the proper names which occur in this and

the following stanzas with those in "Paradise Lost," I, 316-352.

=Peor.= The name of a mountain of Palestine is here used as one of the

titles of Baal, who was worshipped there.

=Baälim.= Plural of Baal, meaning that god in his various modifications.

=Ashtaroth.= The Syrian goddess Astarte. But her worship was identified

rather with the planet Venus than with the moon.

=Hammon.= A Libyan deity, represented as a ram or as a man with ram's

horns.

55. =twise batter'd god.= Dagon. See 1 Samuel v.

56. =mourn.= In Phoenicia, in the ancient city of Byblos, a festival of

two days was held every year in honor of Adonis, or Thammuz, as the

Phoenicians called him. The first day was observed as a day of

mourning for the death of the god; the second, as a day of rejoicing

because of his return to the earth. The principal participants were

young women. The prophet Ezekiel alludes to this subject: "Then he

brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward

the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."--_Ezekiel_

viii. 14.

Milton, in "Paradise Lost," says:

"Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

In amorous ditties all a summer's day."

57. Compare with "Paradise Lost," I, 392-405. In _Sandys's Travels_,

published in 1615, and a popular book in Milton's time, the following

description is given of the sacrifices made to Moloch: "Therein the

Hebrews sacrificed their children to Moloch, an idol of brass, having

the head of a calf, the rest of a kingly figure, with arms extended to

receive the miserable sacrifice seared to death with his burning

embracements. For the idol was hollow within and filled with fire."

58. =grisly.= Frightful, hideous. Probably from A.-S. _agrisan_, to dread.

59. =brutish.= Shaped like a brute; animal.

=Isis.= The Egyptian earth-goddess, afterwards worshipped as the goddess

of the moon.

=Orus.= The Egyptian god of the sun.

the dog =Anubis=. Juvenal says, "Whole towns worship the dog."--_Sat._,

XV, 8.

60. =unshowr'd.= A reference to the general, though erroneous, idea that

it does not rain in Egypt.

=Osiris=, or Apis, one of the chief gods of the Egyptians, was represented

by a bull.

=sacred chest= = =worshipt ark=, below.

61. =eyn.= The old plural form of eyes. This form of the plural survives

in _oxen_, _children_, _brethren_, _kine_, _swine_.

=Typhon.= A monster among the gods, variously described by the poets. He

was a terror to all the other deities.

62. =in bed.= The sun has not yet risen.

63. =youngest teemed.= Referring to the Star of Bethlehem.

64. Compare Milton's "Sonnet on his Blindness":

"They also serve who only stand and wait."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

JOHN MILTON was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, London, in the year

1608, eight years before the death of Shakespeare. From his boyhood he

showed the possession of more than ordinary powers of mind. He was

educated first under private tutors, and at St. Paul's School, and

finally at Christ's College, Cambridge, where in 1632 he received the

degree of "Master of Arts." His first considerable work was the "Hymn on

the Morning of the Nativity," written in 1629. Within the next seven

years he wrote the most noteworthy of his shorter poems: the masque,

"Comus"; the pastoral piece entitled "Arcades"; the beautiful

descriptive poems, "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso"; and the elegy,

"Lycidas." In 1639 he made a tour upon the Continent, visited the famous

seats of learning in France and Italy, and made the acquaintance of many

of the great poets and scholars of his time. Upon hearing, however, that

civil war was about to break out in England, he hastened home, resolved

to devote himself to what he regarded as his country's best interests.

Poetry was abandoned for politics, and for the next twenty years he

wrote little except prose--political tracts and controversial essays.

When Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Milton was appointed

Latin Secretary of State, a position which he continued to hold until

towards the downfall of the Commonwealth. But after the Restoration he

quietly withdrew into retirement, resolved to devote the remainder of

his life to the writing of the great poem which he had been

contemplating for many years. Through unceasing study he had lost his

sight; the friends of his youth had deserted him; the fortune which he

had received from his father was gone. And so it was in darkness, and

disappointment, and poverty, that in 1667 he gave to the world the great

English epic, "Paradise Lost." It was in that same year that Dryden

published his "Annus Mirabilis." Milton shortly afterward wrote

"Paradise Regained"; and, in 1671, he produced "Samson Agonistes," a

tragedy modelled after the masterpieces of the Greek drama. On the 8th

of November, 1674, at the age of sixty-six years, his strangely eventful

life came to a close.

WORDSWORTH'S SONNET TO MILTON.

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee; she is a fen

Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

=Other Poems to be Read:= L'Allegro; Il Penseroso; Comus; Lycidas;

selections from Paradise Lost.

REFERENCES: Masson's _Life and Times of John Milton_; _Milton_

(Classical Writers), by Stopford Brooke; _Milton_ (English Men of

Letters), by Mark Pattison; Macaulay's Essay on _Milton_; De Quincey,

_Milton vs. Southey and Landor_; Coleridge's _Literary Remains_;

Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_; Hazlitt's _English Poets_.

Robert Herrick.

TO PHILLIS.

Live, live with me, and thou shalt see

The pleasures I'll prepare for thee:

What sweets the country can afford

Shall bless thy bed, and bless thy board.

The soft sweet moss shall be thy bed,

With crawling woodbine over-spread:

By which the silver-shedding streams

Shall gently melt thee into dreams.

Thy clothing next, shall be a gown

Made of the fleeces' purest down.

The tongue of kids shall be thy meat;

Their milk thy drink; and thou shalt eat

The paste of filberts for thy bread

With cream of cowslips butterèd:

Thy feasting-table shall be hills

With daisies spread, and daffadils;

Where thou shalt sit, and Red-breast by,

For meat, shall give thee melody.

I'll give thee chains and carcanets

Of primroses and violets.

A bag and bottle thou shalt have,

That richly wrought, and this as brave;

So that as either shall express

The wearer's no mean shepherdess.

At shearing-times, and yearly wakes,

When Themilis his pastime makes,

There thou shalt be; and be the wit,

Nay more, the feast, and grace of it.

On holydays, when virgins meet

To dance the heys with nimble feet,

Thou shalt come forth, and then appear

The Queen of Roses for that year.

And having danced ('bove all the best)

Carry the garland from the rest.

In wicker-baskets maids shall bring

To thee, my dearest shepherdling,

The blushing apple, bashful pear,

And shame-faced plum, all simp'ring there.

Walk in the groves, and thou shalt find

The name of Phillis in the rind

Of every straight and smooth-skin tree;

Where kissing that, I'll twice kiss thee.

To thee a sheep-hook I will send,

Be-prank'd with ribbons, to this end,

This, this alluring hook might be

Less for to catch a sheep, than me.

Thou shalt have possets, wassails fine,

Not made of ale, but spicèd wine;

To make thy maids and self free mirth,

All sitting near the glitt'ring hearth.

Thou shalt have ribbands, roses, rings,

Gloves, garters, stockings, shoes, and strings

Of winning colors that shall move

Others to lust, but me to love.

--These, nay, and more, thine own shall be,

If thou wilt love, and live with me.

THE MAD MAID'S SONG.

Good morrow to the day so fair;

Good morning, sir, to you;

Good morrow to mine own torn hair,

Bedabbled with the dew.

Good morning to this primrose too;

Good morrow to each maid;

That will with flowers the tomb bestrew

Wherein my Love is laid.

Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me,

Alack and well-a-day!

For pity, sir, find out that bee,

Which bore my Love away.

I'll seek him in your bonnet brave;

I'll seek him in your eyes;

Nay, now I think they've made his grave

I' th' bed of strawberries.

I'll seek him there; I know, ere this,

The cold, cold earth doth shake him;

But I will go, or send a kiss

By you, sir, to awake him.

Pray hurt him not; though he be dead,

He knows well who do love him;

And who with green turfs rear his head,

And who do rudely move him.

He's soft and tender, pray take heed,

With bands of cowslips bind him,

And bring him home;--but 'tis decreed

That I shall never find him.

A THANKSGIVING TO GOD.

Lord, thou hast given me a cell,

Wherein to dwell;

A little house, whose humble roof

Is weather proof;

Under the spars of which I lie

Both soft and dry;

Where thou, my chamber for to ward,

Hast set a guard

Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep

Me, while I sleep.

Low is my porch, as is my fate;

Both void of state;

And yet the threshold of my door

Is worn by th' poor,

Who thither come, and freely get

Good words, or meat.

Like as my parlor, so my hall

And kitchen's small;

A little buttery, and therein

A little bin,

Which keeps my little loaf of bread

Unchipt, unflead;

Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar

Make me a fire,

Close by whose living coal I sit,

And glow like it.

Lord, I confess too, when I dine,

The pulse is thine,

And all those other bits that be

There placed by thee;

The worts, the purslain, and the mess

Of water-cress,

Which of thy kindness thou hast sent;

And my content

Makes those, and my belovèd beet,

To be more sweet.

'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth

With guiltless mirth,

And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink,

Spiced to the brink.

Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand

That soils my land,

And giv'st me, for my bushel sown,

Twice ten for one;

Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay

Her egg each day;

Besides, my healthful ewes to bear

Me twins each year;

The while the conduits of my kine

Run cream, for wine:

All these, and better, thou dost send

Me, to this end,--

That I should render, for my part,

A thankful heart;

Which, fired with incense, I resign,

As wholly thine;

--But the acceptance, that must be,

My Christ, by Thee.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

ROBERT HERRICK was born in Cheapside, London, August 20, 1591. He was

educated at Cambridge, and in 1629, having taken orders, was presented

to the vicarage of Dean Prior in Devonshire. From this living he was

ejected by the Long Parliament in 1648, and, going up to London, he

united himself with some of his former associates and entered upon a

career not altogether creditable to his profession of parson. At the

restoration of Charles II. he was returned to his vicarage, where he

remained until his death in 1674. His best poems are included in the

collection entitled "Hesperides, or Works Humane and Divine," published

in 1648, and dedicated to "the most illustrious and most hopeful Prince

Charles." The "Argument" prefixed to this collection very prettily

describes the character of the pieces which it contains:

"I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,

Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers;

I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,

Of bride-grooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes.

I write of Youth, of Love;--and have access

By these, to sing of cleanly wantonness;

I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece,

Of balm, of oil, of spice, of ambergris.

I sing of times trans-shifting; and I write

How roses first came red, and lilies white.

I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing

The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King;

I write of Hell; I sing, and ever shall

Of Heaven,--and hope to have it after all."

"Herrick's best things," says Robert Buchanan, "are his poems in praise

of the country life, and his worst things are his epigrams. His

gladsome, mercurial temper had a great deal to do with the composition

of his best lyrics; for the parson of Dean Prior was no philosopher, and

his lightest, airiest verses are the best. His was a happy, careless

nature, throwing off verses out of the fulness of a joyous heart,

rioting in a pleasant, sunny element."

Edmund Waller.

SONG.

Go, lovely Rose,

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

That now she knows

When I resemble her to thee

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that's young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

That had'st thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retired;

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desired,

And not blush so to be admired.

Then die, that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee,

How small a part of time they share

Who are so wondrous sweet and fair.

OF ENGLISH VERSE.

Poets may boast, as safely vain,

Their works shall with the world remain:

Both bound together, live or die,

The verses and the prophecy.

But who can hope his line should long

Last, in a daily-changing tongue?

While they are new, envy prevails;

And as that dies our language fails.

When architects have done their part,

The matter may betray their art:

Time, if we use ill-chosen stone,

Soon brings a well-built palace down.

Poets, that lasting marble seek,

Must carve in Latin or in Greek:

We write in sand, our language grows,

And, like the tide, our work o'erflows.

Chaucer his sense can only boast,

The glory of his numbers lost!

Years have defac't his matchless strain,

And yet he did not sing in vain.

The beauties which adorn'd that age,

The shining subjects of his rage,

Hoping they should immortal prove,

Rewarded with success his love.

This was the gen'rous poet's scope,

And all an English pen can hope;

To make the fair approve his flame,

That can so far extend their fame.

Verse thus design'd has no ill fate,

If it arrive but at the date

Of fading beauty, if it prove

But as long-liv'd as present love.

ON A GIRDLE.

That which her slender waist confin'd

Shall now my joyful temples bind;

No monarch but would give his crown

His arms might do what this has done.

It was my heaven's extremest sphere,

The pale which held that lovely deer:

My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,

Did all within this circle move!

A narrow compass! and yet there

Dwelt all that's good and all that's fair:

Give me but what this riband bound,

Take all the rest the sun goes round.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

EDMUND WALLER, whose poetry is noticeable because he was the first

English versifier to adopt the French fashion of writing in couplets,

was born in Warwickshire in 1605. He was elected to Parliament at the

age of seventeen, and was a member of that body during the greater part

of his life. At the beginning of the difficulties between the king and

the Parliament, he gained some notoriety by his opposition to the

former, but when the Civil War broke out he attached himself to the

Royalist cause. In 1643, being convicted of complicity in a plot against

Parliament, he was fined £10,000 and imprisoned for twelve months. After

his release he went to France; but in 1653 he returned to England and

became reconciled to the new government, writing, soon afterward, "A

Panegyric to my Lord Protector, of the present Greatness and joint

Interest of his Highness and this Nation." At the Restoration he eagerly

declared allegiance to Charles II., and wrote a congratulatory ode on

that monarch's return. He became a court favorite, noted for his wit,

was made provost of Eton, and returned to his old place in Parliament.

He died October 21, 1687. The first edition of his poems was published

in 1645, and from that time to the close of the seventeenth century he

was quite generally regarded as the greatest of English poets. At the

present time there are few writers so little considered as he.

Waller may be regarded as the founder of the classical school of English

poetry, in which Dryden and Pope excelled, and which remained in the

ascendency for more than a century after his death. "The excellence and

dignity of rhyme," says Dryden, "were never fully known till Mr. Waller

taught it; he first made writing easily an art, first showed us to

conclude the sense, most commonly, in distichs, which in the verse of

those before him runs on for so many lines together, that the reader is

out of breath to overtake it."

And Dr. Johnson says: "He certainly very much excelled in smoothness

most of the writers who were living when his poetry commenced. But he

was rather smooth than strong: of the 'full resounding line' which Pope

attributes to Dryden, he has given very few examples. The general

character of his poetry is elegance and gaiety. He seems neither to have

had a mind much elevated by nature, nor amplified by learning. His

thoughts are such as a liberal conversation and large acquaintance with

life would easily supply."

Ben Jonson.

AN ODE TO HIMSELF.

Where dost Thou careless lie

Buried in ease and sloth?

Knowledge that sleeps, doth die;

And this security,

It is the common moth

That eats on wits and arts, and [so] destroys them both.

Are all the Aonian{1} springs

Dried up? lies Thespia waste?

Doth Clarius'{2} harp want strings,

That not a nymph now sings;

Or droop they as disgrac'd,

To see their seats and bowers by chattering pies{3} defac'd?

If hence{4} thy silence be,

As 'tis too just a cause,

Let this thought quicken thee:

Minds that are great and free

Should not on fortune pause;

'Tis crown enough to virtue{5} still, her own applause.

What though the greedy fry

Be taken with false baits

Of worded balladry,

And think it poesy?

They die with their conceits,

And only piteous scorn upon their folly waits.

Then take in hand thy lyre;

Strike in thy proper strain;

With Japhet's line,{6} aspire

Sol's chariot for new fire,

To give the world again:

Who aided him, will thee, the issue of Jove's brain.{7}

And, since our dainty age

Cannot endure reproof,

Make not thyself a page

To that strumpet the stage;

But sing high and aloof,

Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof.{8}

NOTES.

This poem is found in the collection of miscellaneous pieces, by Ben

Jonson, entitled "Underwoods." The poet reproaches himself for his own

indolence.

1. =Aonian springs.= The fountain Aganippe, situated in Aonia, was much

frequented by the Muses, who were therefore sometimes called "Aonides."

They were also called _Thespiades_, because Mount Helicon, one of their

favored resorts, was in the vicinity of Thespia, and was itself named

"Thespia rupes."

2. =Clarius.= The name applied to the celebrated oracle of Apollo at

Clarus, on the Ionian coast.

3. =pies.= Magpies, "who make sound without sense."

4. =hence.= For this reason.

5. =virtue . . . her own applause.= Compare:

"Virtue is her own reward."--_Dryden_, _Tyrannic Love_.

"Virtue, a reward to itself."--_Walton_, _Compleat Angler_.

"Virtue is its own reward."--_Prior_, _Imitations of Horace_.

6. =Japhet's line.= The line of Iapetus, the father of Prometheus, who

stole fire from the chariot of the sun.

7. =issue of Jove's brain.= Athene, or Minerva.

8. "Safe from the slanderer and the fool."

TO CYNTHIA.

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,

Now the sun is laid to sleep;

Seated in thy silver chair,

State in wonted manner keep;

Hesperus entreats thy light,

Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade

Dare itself to interpose;

Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heaven to clear, when day did close;

Bless us then with wished sight,

Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal-shining quiver;

Give unto the flying heart

Space to breathe, how short soever;

Thou that mak'st a day of night,

Goddess excellently bright.

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE

HATH LEFT US.

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,

Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;{1}

While I confess thy writings to be such,

As neither Man nor Muse can praise too much.

'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways

Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;

For seeliest{2} ignorance on these may light,

Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;

Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance

The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;

Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,

And think to ruin where it seemed to praise.

But thou art proof against them and, indeed,

Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.

I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!

My SHAKESPEARE rise! I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room:{3}

Thou art a monument without a tomb,

And art alive still while thy book doth live,

And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

That I not mix thee so my brain excuses,--

I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses;

For if I thought my judgment were of years,

I should commit thee surely with thy peers,

And tell how far thou didst our Lyly{4} outshine,

Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,

From thence to honor thee I would not seek

For names, but call forth thund'ring Æschylus,{5}

Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius,{6} him of Cordova dead,

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,

And shake a stage; or when thy socks{7} were on,

Leave thee alone for a comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,

To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.

He was not of an age, but for all time!

And all the Muses still were in their prime,

When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm

Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!

Nature herself was proud of his designs,

And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines,

Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,

As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.

The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,

Neat Terence, witty Plautus,{8} now not please;

But antiquated and deserted lie,

As they were not of Nature's family.

Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art,

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.

For though the poet's matter nature be,

His art doth give the fashion; and that he{9}

Who casts to write a living line, must sweat

(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat

Upon the Muses' anvil, turn the same,

And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;

Or for the laurel he may gain to scorn;

For a good poet's made, as well as born.

And such wert thou! Look, how the father's face

Lives in his issue, even so the race

Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines

In his well-turnèd and true filèd lines,

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,

As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.

Sweet Swan of Avon!{10} what a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,

That so did take Eliza and our James!

But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere{11}

Advanced, and made a constellation there!

Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage

Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage,

Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,

And despairs day but for thy volume's light.

NOTES.

This poem was prefixed to the first folio edition of Shakespeare, 1623,

and is also printed in Ben Jonson's "Underwoods."

1. The meaning of these two lines would seem to be: "To show that I am

not envious, Shakespeare, of thy name, I thus write fully of thy works

and fame."

2. =seeliest.= Silliest, simplest. From A.-S. _saelig_, foolish. See note

23, page 190.

3. In allusion to W. Basse's elegy on Shakespeare, beginning:

"Renownèd Spenser, lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer; and rare Beaumont, lie

A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespear in your threefold, fourfold tomb."

4. =Lyly, Kyd, Marlowe.= Contemporaries of Shakespeare. See Biographical

Dictionary.

5. =Æschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles.= The founders of the Greek

tragical drama.

6. =Pacuvius, Accius.= Celebrated Roman tragic poets.

=him of Cordova.= Seneca, the great rhetorician, was born at Cordova, in

Spain, B.C. 61.

7. =socks were on.= The socks indicated comedy, and the buskins tragedy.

Compare Milton's "L'Allegro," 131:

"Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson's learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,

Warble his native wood-note wild."

Also, "Il Penseroso," 97. See note on _buskin_, page 139.

8. =Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus.= Ancient writers of comedy.

9. =that he.= That man.

10. =Swan of Avon.= So Cowper calls Virgil "the Mantuan swan."

11. =hemisphere.= The celestial hemisphere.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

BEN JONSON was born in Westminster, in 1573. His early life was full of

hard and varied experiences. He was educated at Westminster School, and

entered St. John's College, Cambridge. Being obliged to leave his

university course unfinished, he worked for a time with his step-father

as a brick-layer. At the age of eighteen he enlisted as a volunteer in

the Low Countries; but in 1596 he settled in London, as a playwright.

His first comedy, "Every Man in his Humour," did not meet with immediate

success. It was remodelled, at Shakespeare's suggestion, and when

afterwards presented was received with marked favor. His first tragedy,

"Sejanus," was acted in 1603. His masques, of which there are

thirty-six, were written during the reign of James I. His miscellaneous

works, embracing a variety of odes, elegies, epigrams, and other lyrics

and epistles, are included in two collections, the first of which,

called _The Forest_, was published in 1616, and the second posthumously,

in 1641. He died in London, August 6, 1637.

One of the last and most beautiful of Jonson's dramas is the unfinished

pastoral comedy, "The Sad Shepherd." It was written while in the

sick-chamber, with a keen sense and remembrance of the disappointments

which had followed him through life; and to these he touchingly refers

in the prologue:

"He that hath feasted you these forty years,

And fitted fables for your finer ears,

Although at first he scarce could hit the bore;

Yet you, with patience, hearkening more and more,

At length have grown up to him, and made known

The working of his pen is now your own:

He prays you would vouchsafe, for your own sake,

To hear him this once more, but sit awake.

And though he now present you with such wool

As from mere English flocks his muse can pull,

He hopes when it is made up into cloth,

Not the most curious head here will be loth

To wear a hood of it, it being a fleece,

To match or those of Sicily or Greece.

His scene is Sherwood, and his play a tale

Of Robin Hood's inviting from the vale

Of Belvoir, all the shepherds to a feast;

Where, by the casual absence of one guest,

The mirth is troubled much, and in one man

As much of sadness shown as passion can."

Robert Herrick wrote of him thus:

"Ah Ben!

Say how or when

Shall we, thy guests,

Meet at those lyric feasts,

Made at the Sun,

The Dog, the Triple Tun;

Where we such clusters had,

As made us nobly wild, not mad?

And yet each verse of thine

Out-did the meat, out-did the frolic wine.

"My Ben!

Or come again,

Or send to us

Thy wit's great overplus;

But teach us yet

Wisely to husband it,

Lest we that talent spend;

And having once brought to an end

That precious stock,--the store

Of such a wit the world should have no more."

The Sixteenth Century.

"_In fifty-two years, without counting the drama, two hundred and

thirty-three poets are enumerated, of whom forty have genius or

talent. . . . What is this condition which gives rise to so universal a

taste for poetry? What is it breathes life into their books? How happens

it, that amongst the least, in spite of pedantrie, awkwardnesses, we

meet with brilliant pictures and genuine love-cries? How happens it,

that when this generation was exhausted, true poetry ended in England,

as true painting in Italy and Flanders? It was because an epoch of the

mind came and passed away,--that, namely, of instinctive and creative

conception. These men had new senses, and no theories in their

heads. . . . They are happy in contemplating beautiful things, and wish

only that they should be the most beautiful possible. They do not excite

themselves to express moral or philosophical ideas. They wish to enjoy

through the imagination, through the eyes, like those Italian nobles,

who, at the same time, were so captivated by fine colors and forms, that

they covered with paintings not only their rooms and their churches, but

the lids of their chests and the saddles of their horses. . . . Think

what poetry was likely to spring from them, how superior to common

events, how free from literal imitation, how smitten with ideal beauty,

how capable of creating a world beyond our sad world._"--TAINE.

Poets of the Sixteenth Century.

=Sir Thomas Wyatt= (1503-1542). See biographical note, page 252.

=Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey= (1517-1547). See biographical note, page

252.

=George Gascoigne= (1536-1577). "The Steel Glass"; "The Tragedy of

Iocaste."

=Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst= (1536-1608). "The Induction to the

Mirror for Magistrates"; "The Tragedy of Gorboduc."

=Edmund Spenser= (1552-1598). See biographical note, page 245.

=Sir Philip Sidney= (1554-1586). "Astrophel and Stella"; sonnets and short

poems.

=Thomas Watson= (1557-1592). "The Hecatompathia or Passionate Century of

Love"; "Meliboeus"; "The Tears of Fancie."

=John Lyly= (1554-1606). Lyrical poems; "Alexander and Campaspe"; "Love's

Metamorphosis."

=Robert Greene= (1560-1592). Dramas and lyrical poems.

=Christopher Marlowe= (1564-1593). Dramas and lyrical poems.

=Thomas Lodge= (1556-1625). Dramas and lyrical poems.

=William Warner= (1550-1609). "Albion's England"; "Pan, his Syrinx or

Pipe."

=William Shakespeare= (1564-1616). See note, page 221.

=Samuel Daniel= (1562-1619). "History of the Civil Wars between the two

Houses of York and Lancaster."

=Sir Walter Raleigh= (1552-1618). Short poems.

=George Chapman= (1559-1634). Translations of "Homer's Iliad" and "Homer's

Odyssey."

=Michael Drayton= (1563-1631). "Polyolbion"; "The Barons' Wars"; "The

Battle of Agincourt."

=Joseph Hall= (1574-1656). "Virgidemiarum"; satires.

=Sir John Davies= ( -1626). "Nosce Teipsum."

=John Donne= (1573-1631). Short poems.

William Shakespeare.

VENUS'S ADVICE TO ADONIS ON HUNTING.

[FROM "VENUS AND ADONIS."]

"Thou hadst been gone," quoth she, "sweet boy, ere this,

But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.

O, be advised! thou know'st not what it is

With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,

Whose tushes never sheathed he whetteth still,

Like to a mortal butcher bent to kill.

"On his bow-back he hath a battle set

Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;

His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret;

His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes;

Being moved, he strikes whate'er is in his way,

And when he strikes his crooked tushes slay.

"His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd,

Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;

His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd;

Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:

The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,

As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.

"Alas, he nought esteems that face of thine,

To which Love's eyes pay tributary gazes;

Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips and crystal eyne,

Whose full perfection all the world amazes;

But having thee at vantage,--wondrous dread!

Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.

"O, let him keep his loathsome cabin still;

Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends:

Come not within his danger by thy will;

They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.

When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,

I fear'd thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

"But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me;

Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,

Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,

Or at the roe which no encounter dare:

Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,

And on thy well-breathed horse keep with thy hounds.

"And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,

Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles

How he outruns the wind and with what care

He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:

The many musets through the which he goes

Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

"Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,

To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,

And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,

To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,

And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer:

Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

"For there his smell with others being mingled,

The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,

Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled

With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;

Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,

As if another chase were in the skies.

"By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,

Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,

To hearken if his foes pursue him still:

Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;

And now his grief may be compared well

To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

"Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch

Turn, and return, indenting with the way;

Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch,

Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:

For misery is trodden on by many,

And being low never relieved by any."

A MORNING SONG FOR IMOGEN.

[FROM "CYMBELINE."]

Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus 'gins arise,

His steeds to water at those springs

On chaliced flowers that lies;

And winking Mary-buds begin

To ope their golden eyes:

With everything that pretty is,

My lady sweet, arise:

Arise, arise.

SIGH NO MORE, LADIES.

[FROM "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING."]

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

Men were deceivers ever,

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never:

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,

Of dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leafy:

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

SUNSHINE AND CLOUD.

[SONNET XXXIII.]

Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine

With all-triumphant splendor on my brow;

But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

THE WORLD'S WAY.

[SONNET LXVI.]

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,--

As, to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

And gilded honor shamefully misplaced,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,

And strength by limping sway disabled,

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,

And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

And captive Good attending captain Ill:

Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,--

Save that, to die, I leave my Love alone.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was born at Stratford-on-Avon in April, 1564, and

died there April 23, 1616. His fame rests chiefly upon his dramatic

compositions. His two narrative poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape

of Lucrece," were published in 1593 and 1594, before any of his plays

had been printed. They may be regarded as companion pieces, written in

the same style and distinguished by similar characteristics.

"A couple of ice-houses," says Dowden, "these two poems of Shakespeare

have been called by Hazlitt; 'they are,' he says, 'as hard, as

glittering, as cold.' Cold indeed they will seem to any one who listens

to hear in them the natural cry of human passion. But the paradox is

true, that for a young poet of Elizabeth's age to be natural, direct,

simple, would have been indeed unnatural. He was most happy when most

fantastical; he spun a shining web to catch conceits inevitably as a

spider casts his thread; the quick-building wit was itself warm while

erecting its ice-houses." Coleridge says of the "Venus and Adonis" that

its most obvious excellence "is the perfect sweetness of the

versification; its adaptation to the subject; and the power displayed in

varying the march of the words without passing into a loftier and more

majestic rhythm than was demanded by the thoughts, or permitted by the

propriety of preserving a sense of melody predominant."

Shakespeare's "Sonnets" were published in 1609. Concerning the origin,

purpose, and interpretation of these poems, many widely different

theories have been proposed, "Some have looked on them as one poem."

says Fleay; "some as several poems--of groups of sonnets; some as

containing a separate poem in each sonnet. They have been supposed to be

written in Shakespeare's own person, or in the character of another, or

of several others; to be autobiographical or heterobiographical or

allegorical; to have been addressed to Lord Southampton, to Sir William

Herbert, to his own wife, to Lady Rich, to his child, to himself, to his

Muse." The safest and wisest course seems to be, first to regard each of

the one hundred and fifty-four sonnets as a poem complete in itself, and

after studying whatever it may contain of art, or beauty, or truth, then

to discover, if possible, its relationship to those which precede or

follow it in the series.

Of the other poems written by Shakespeare, mention should be made of

"The Passionate Pilgrim" (1559), "The Phoenix and the Turtle" (1601), "A

Lover's Complaint," published in the same volume with the "Sonnets," and

the few exquisite little songs scattered through his plays.

Edmund Spenser.

THE CAVE OF MAMMON.

Guyon findes Mammon in a delve{1}

Sunning his threasure hore{2};

Is by him tempted, and led downe

To see his secrete store.

As Pilot well expert in perilous wave,

That to a stedfast starre{3} his course hath bent,

When foggy mistes or cloudy tempests have

The faithfull light of that faire lampe yblent,{4}

And cover'd heaven with hideous dreriment,{5}

Upon his card and compas firmes{6} his eye,

The maysters of his long experiment,

And to them does the steddy helme apply,

Bidding his winged vessell fairely forward fly:

So Guyon having lost his trustie guyde,

Late left beyond that Ydle lake, proceedes

Yet on his way, of none accompanyde;

And evermore himselfe with comfort feedes

Of his own vertues and praise-worthie deedes.

So, long he yode,{7} yet no adventure found,

Which fame of her shrill trumpet worthy reedes{8};

For still he traveild through wide wastfull ground,

That nought but desert wildernesse shewed all around.

At last he came unto a gloomy glade,

Cover'd with boughes and shrubs from heavens light,

Whereas he sitting found in secret shade

An uncouth, salvage,{9} and uncivile wight,

Of griesly hew and fowle ill-favour'd sight;

His face with smoke was tand, and eies were bleard,

His head and beard with sout were ill bedight,{10}

His cole-blacke hands did seeme to have been seard

In smythes fire-spitting{11} forge, and nayles like clawes appear.

His yron cote, all overgrowne with rust,

Was underneath enveloped with gold;

Whose glistring glosse, darkned with filthy dust,

Well yet appeared to have beene of old

A worke of rich entayle{12} and curious mould,

Woven with antickes{13} and wyld ymagery;

And in his lap a masse of coyne he told,

And turned upside downe, to feede his eye

And covetous desire with his huge threasury.

And round about him lay on every side

Great heapes of gold that never could be spent;

Of which some were rude owre, not purifide

Of Mulcibers{14} devouring element;

Some others were new driven, and distent

Into great Ingowes and to wedges square;

Some in round plates withouten moniment{15};

But most were stampt, and in their metal bare

The antique shapes of kings and kesars straunge and rare.

Soone as he Guyon saw, in great affright

And haste he rose for to remove aside

Those pretious hils from straungers envious sight,

And downe them poured through an hole full wide

Into the hollow earth, them there to hide.

But Guyon, lightly to him leaping, stayd

His hand that trembled as one terrifyde;

And though himselfe were at the sight dismayd,

Yet him perforce restraynd, and to him doubtfull sayd:

"What art thou, man, (if man at all thou art)

That here in desert hast thine habitaunce,

And these rich hils of welth doest hide apart

From the worldes eye, and from her right usaunce?"

Thereat, with staring eyes fixed askaunce,

In great disdaine he answerd: "Hardy Elfe,

That darest view my direfull countenaunce,

I read thee rash and heedlesse of thy selfe,

To trouble my still seate, and heapes of pretious pelfe.

"God of the world and worldlings I me call,

Great Mammon, greatest god below the skye,

That of my plenty poure out unto all,

And unto none my graces do envye:

Riches, renowme, and principality,

Honour, estate, and all this worldes good,

For which men swinck{16} and sweat incessantly,

Fro me do flow into an ample flood,

And in the hollow earth have their eternall brood.

"Wherefore, if me thou deigne to serve and sew,{17}

At thy commaund lo! all these mountaines bee:

Or if to thy great mind, or greedy vew,

All these may not suffise, there shall to thee

Ten times so much be nombred francke and free."

"Mammon," (said he) "thy godheads vaunt is vaine,

And idle offers of thy golden fee;

To them that covet such eye-glutting gaine

Proffer thy giftes, and fitter servaunts entertaine.

"Me ill besits,{18} that in derdoing, armes

And honours suit my vowd daies do spend,

Unto thy bounteous baytes and pleasing charmes,

With which weake men thou witchest, to attend;

Regard of worldly mucke{19} doth fowly blend,

And low abase the high heroicke spright,{20}

That joyes for crownes and kingdomes to contend:

Faire shields, gay steedes, bright armes be my delight;

Those be the riches fit for an advent'rous knight."

"Vaine glorious Elfe," (saide he) "doest not thou weet,{21}

That money can thy wantes at will supply?

Sheilds, steeds, and armes, and all things for thee meet,

It can purvay in twinckling of an eye;

And crownes and kingdomes to thee multiply.

Do not I kings create, and throw the crowne

Sometimes to him that low in dust doth ly,

And him that raignd into his rowme thrust downe,

And whom I lust do heape with glory and renowne?"

"All otherwise" (saide he) "I riches read,

And deeme them roote of all disquietnesse;

First got with guile, and then preserv'd with dread,

And after spent with pride and lavishnesse,

Leaving behind them griefe and heavinesse:

Infinite mischiefes of them doe arize,

Strife and debate, bloodshed and bitternesse,

Outrageous wrong, and hellish covetize,

That noble heart as great dishonour doth despize.

"Ne thine be kingdomes, ne the scepters thine;

But realmes and rulers thou doest both confound,

And loyall truth to treason doest incline:

Witnesse the guiltlesse blood pourd oft on ground,

The crowned often slaine, the slayer cround;

The sacred Diademe in peeces rent,

And purple robe gored with many a wound,

Castles surprizd, great cities sackt and brent;

So mak'st thou kings, and gaynest wrongfull government.

"Long were to tell the troublous stormes that tosse

The private state, and make the life unsweet:

Who swelling sayles in Caspian sea doth crosse,

And in frayle wood on Adrian gulf doth fleet,

Doth not, I weene, so many evils meet."

Then Mammon wexing wroth: "And why then," sayd,

"Are mortall men so fond{22} and undiscreet

So evill thing to seeke unto their ayd,

And having not complaine, and having it upbrayd?"

"Indeede," (quoth he) "through fowle intemperaunce

Frayle men are oft captiv'd to covetise;

But would they thinke with how small allowaunce

Untroubled Nature doth herselfe suffise,

Such superfluities they would despise,

Which with sad cares empeach{23} our native joyes.

At the well-head the purest streames arise;

But mucky filth his braunching armes annoyes,

And with uncomely weedes the gentle wave accloyes.{24}

"The antique world, in his first flowring youth,

Fownd no defect in his Creators grace;

But with glad thankes, and unreproved truth,{25}

The gifts of soveraine bounty did embrace:

Like Angels life was then mens happy cace;

But later ages pride, like corn-fed steed,

Abusd her plenty and fat swolne encreace

To all licentious lust, and gan exceed

The measure of her meane and naturall first need.

"Then gan a cursed hand the quiet wombe

Of his great Grandmother{26} with steele to wound,

And the hid treasures in her sacred tombe

With Sacriledge to dig. Therein he fownd

Fountaines of gold and silver to abownd,

Of which the matter of his huge desire

And pompous pride eftsoones he did compownd;

Then avarice gan through his veines inspire

His greedy flames, and kindled life-devouring fire."

"Sonne," (said he then) "lett be{27} thy bitter scorne,

And leave the rudenesse of that antique age

To them that liv'd therein, in state forlorne:

Thou, that doest live in later times, must wage{28}

Thy workes for wealth, and life for gold engage.

If then thee list my offred grace to use,

Take what thou please of all this surplusage;

If thee list not, leave have thou to refuse:

But refused doe not afterward accuse."

"Me list{29} not" (said the Elfin knight) "receave

Thing offred, till I know it well be gott;

Ne wote but thou didst these goods bereave

From rightfull owner by unrighteous lott,

Or that bloodguiltinesse or guile them blott."

"Perdy,"{30} (quoth he) "yet never eie did vew,

Ne tong did tell, ne hand these handled not;

But safe I have them kept in secret mew

From hevens sight, and powre of al which them poursew.

"What secret place" (quoth he) "can safely hold

So huge a masse, and hide from heaven's eie?

Or where hast thou thy wonne,{31} that so much gold

Thou canst preserve from wrong and robbery?"

"Come thou," (quoth he) "and see." So by and by

Through that thick covert he him led, and fownd

A darkesome way, which no man could descry,

That deep descended through the hollow grownd,

And was with dread and horror compassed arownd.

At length they came into a larger space,

That stretcht itselfe into an ample playne;

Through which a beaten broad high way did trace,

That streight did lead to Plutoes griesly rayne.{32}

By that wayes side there sate internall Payne,

And fast beside him sat tumultuous Strife:

The one in hand an yron whip did strayne,

The other brandished a bloody knife;

And both did gnash their teeth, and both did threten life.

On thother side in one consort there sate

Cruell Revenge, and rancorous Despight,

Disloyall Treason, and hart-burning Hate;

But gnawing Gealousy, out of their sight

Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bight;

And trembling Feare still to and fro did fly,

And found no place wher safe he shroud him might:

Lamenting Sorrow did in darknes lye,

And Shame his ugly face did hide from living eye.

And over them sad Horror with grim hew

Did alwaies sore, beating his yron wings;

And after him Owles and Night-ravens flew,

The hatefull messengers of heavy things,

Of death and dolor telling sad tidings,

Whiles sad Celeno, sitting on a clifte,

A song of bale and bitter sorrow sings,

That hart of flint asonder could have rifte;

Which having ended after him she flyeth swifte.

All these before the gates of Pluto lay,

By whom they passing spake unto them nought;

But th' Elfin knight with wonder all the way

Did feed his eyes, and fild his inner thought.

At last him to a little dore he brought,

That to the gate of Hell, which gaped wide,

Was next adjoyning, ne them parted ought:

Betwixt them both was but a little stride,

That did the house of Richesse from hell-mouth divide.

Before the dore sat selfe-consuming Care,

Day and night keeping wary watch and ward,

For feare least Force or Fraud should unaware

Breake in, and spoile the treasure there in gard:

Ne would he suffer Sleepe once thither-ward

Approch, albe his drowsy den were next;

For next to Death is Sleepe to be compard;{33}

Therefore his house is unto his annext:

Here Sleep, ther Richesse, and Hel-gate them both betwext.

So soon as Mammon there arrivd, the dore

To him did open and affoorded way:

Him followed eke Sir Guyon evermore,

Ne darknesse him, ne daunger might dismay.

Soone as he entred was, the dore streight way

Did shutt, and from behind it forth there lept

An ugly feend, more fowle then dismall day,

The which with monstrous stalke behind him stept,

And ever as he went dew watch upon him kept.

Well hoped hee, ere long that hardy guest,

If ever covetous hand, or lustfull eye,

Or lips he layd on thing that likte him best,

Or ever sleepe his eie-strings did untye,

Should be his pray. And therefore still on hye

He over him did hold his cruell clawes,

Threatning with greedy gripe to doe him dye,

And rend in peeces with his ravenous pawes,

If ever he transgrest the fatal Stygian lawes.

That houses forme within was rude and strong,

Lyke an huge cave hewne out of rocky clifte,

From whose rough vaut the ragged breaches hong

Embossed with massy gold of glorious guifte,

And with rich metall loaded every rifte,

That heavy ruine they did seeme to threatt;

And over them Arachne high did lifte

Her cunning web, and spred her subtile nett,

Enwrapped in fowle smoke and clouds more black than Jett.

Both roofe, and floore, and walls, were all of gold,

But overgrowne with dust and old decay,

And hid in darkenes, that none could behold

The hew thereof; for vew of cherefull day

Did never in that house it selfe display,

But a faint shadow of uncertain light:

Such as a lamp, whose life does fade away,

Or as the Moone, cloathed with clowdy night,

Does show to him that walkes in feare and sad affright.

In all that rowme was nothing to be seene

But huge great yron chests, and coffers strong,

All bard with double bends, that none could weene

Them to efforce by violence or wrong:

On every side they placed were along;

But all the grownd with sculs was scattered,

And dead mens bones, which round about were flong;

Whose lives, it seemed, whilome{34} there were shed,

And their vile carcases now left unburied.

NOTES.

This is a selection from Spenser's great poem, "The Faerie Queene,"

being a part of the seventh canto of book second. "The Faerie Queene"

was published in 1590, and comprises six books of twelve cantos each.

The first book is the Legend of the Red Cross Knight, or Holiness; the

second, of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; the third, of Britomartis, or

Chastity; the fourth, of Cambel and Triamond, or Friendship; the fifth,

of Artegall, or Justice; the sixth, of Sir Calidore, or Courtesy. It was

Spenser's design that the complete work should contain twelve books, but

of the remaining part only a fragment of one book, the "Legend of

Constance," is in existence.

The versification of the "Faerie Queene" is based upon the _ottava

rima_, made so popular in Italian poetry by Tasso and Ariosto. Instead

of eight lines to a stanza, however, there are nine. The first eight

lines are iambic pentameters, and the ninth a hexameter, the stanza thus

closing with a lingering cadence which adds greatly to the melody of the

verse. This is the "Spenserian stanza," a form of versification very

popular with many of our later poets.

"If you love poetry well enough to enjoy it for its own sake," says

Leigh Hunt, "let no evil reports of his _allegory_ deter you from an

acquaintance with Spenser, for great will be your loss. His allegory

itself is but one part allegory and nine parts beauty and enjoyment;

sometimes an excess of flesh and blood. His wholesale poetical belief,

mixing up all creeds and mythologies, but with less violence, resembles

that of Dante and Boccaccio. His versification is almost perpetual

honey."

1. =delve.= Dell. From A.-S. _delfan_, delve, to dig. Each canto of the

"Faerie Queene" is introduced by a four-line doggerel like this,

containing the argument, or a brief summary of the narrative,--in

imitation, probably, of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso."

2. =hore.= Sordid, miserly. Probably from A.-S. _harian_, to become mouldy

or musty. The word _hoard_ may be traced to a similar root.

3. =stedfast starre.= The pole-star. See "Faerie Queene," I, ii, 1:

"By this the northerne wagoner had set

His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre

That was in ocean waves yet never wet,

But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre

To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre."

4. =yblent.= Blinded.

5. =dreriment.= Darkness.

6. =firmes.= Fixes, makes firm.

7. =yode.= Went. The past participle of the old verb _yede_, from A.-S.

_gangead_, to go, to proceed.

8. =reedes.= Considers. From A.-S. _ræd_, counsel, advice; O. E. _rede_.

9. =salvage.= Savage, wild. Fr. _sauvage_. From Lat. _silva_, forest. See

"Faerie Queene," IV, v, 19:

"For all his armour was like salvage weed

With woody mosse bedight, and all his steed

With oaken leaves attrapt, that seemed fit

For salvage wight, and thereto well agreed

His word, which on his ragged shield was writ,

_Salvagesse sans finesse_,[233:1] shewing secret wit."

=wight.= Person. From A.-S. _wiht_.

"For every wight that loved chevalrie."

--_Chaucer_, _Canterbury Tales_, 2105.

=griesly.= Dreadful. From A.-S. _grislic_; _agrisan_, to dread. Grisly.

10. =bedight.= Covered. From _dight_, to dress, to deck. A.-S. _dihtan_.

11. =fire-spitting.= "_Spett_ seems anciently to have more simply

signified _disperse_, without the low idea which we at present affix to

it."--_Warton._

12. =entayle.= Sculpture, carving. Compare _intaglio_.

13. =antickes.= Odd, or fantastic, forms. From Lat, _antiquus_, ancient.

14. =of Mulcibers devouring element.= By fire. Mulciber is a surname of

Vulcan, "which seems to have been given him as an euphemism, that he

might not consume the habitations and property of men, but kindly aid

them in their pursuits."

15. =withouten moniment.= Without superscription.

16. =swinck.= Labor, drudge. A.-S. _swincan_, to toil.

17. =sew.= Follow. From Fr. _suivre_.

=deigne.= From Fr. _daigner_, to consider worthy. Opposed to _disdain_.

18. =Me ill besits.= It ill becomes me.

=derdoing.= Dare-doing; doing daring deeds.

19. =worldly mucke.= "Filthy lucre."

20. =spright.= Spirit.

21. =weet.= Understand. From A.-S. _witan_, to know.

22. =fond.= Foolish.

23. =empeach.= Hinder. Fr. _empêcher_.

24. =accloyes.= Chokes or clogs up. Observe how the poet carries out his

metaphor of the "well-head," "the purest streames," "his braunching

armes," and "the gentle wave."

25. =unreproved truth.= Sincerity.

26. =great Grandmother.= Mother Earth.

27. =lett be.= Leave off; make an end of.

28. =wage.= Pledge. Observe the relationship between this word and both

_wager_ and _wages_.

29. =Me list.= I wish. Compare _methinks_, _meseems_. From A.-S. _lystan_,

to choose.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth."--_John_ iii. 8.

=wote.= Understood. See note 21 above.

30. =Perdy.= An old oath used to give emphasis to an assertion. From Fr.

_par dieu_.

31. =wonne.= Habitation. From A.-S. _wunian_, to dwell.

32. =rayne.= Reign. The word is frequently used in the older poets for

_realm_, or _region_.

33. =next to Death is Sleepe.=

"How wonderful is Death!

Death and his brother Sleep!"

--_Shelley_, _Queen Mab_, I.

34. =whilome.= At some time.

FOOTNOTES:

[233:1] Wildness without art.

PROTHALAMION; OR, A SPOUSALL VERSE.

IN HONOUR OF THE DOUBLE MARRIAGE OF THE TWO HONORABLE AND VERTUOUS

LADIES, THE LADY ELIZABETH AND THE LADY KATHERINE SOMERSET, DAUGHTERS TO

THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARLE OF WORCESTER, AND ESPOUSED TO THE TWO

WORTHIE GENTLEMEN, M. HENRY GILFORD AND M. WILLIAM PETER, ESQUYERS.

Calme was the day, and through the trembling ayre

Sweete-breathing Zephyrus did softly play

A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay

Hot Titans{1} beames, which then did glyster fayre;

When I, (whom sullein care,

Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay

In princes court,{2} and expectation vayne

Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away

Like empty shadows, did afflict my brayne,)

Walkt forth to ease my payne

Along the shoare of silver streaming Themmes{3};

Whose rutty{4} bank, the which his river hemmes,

Was paynted all with variable flowers,

And all the meades adorned with dainty gemmes

Fit to decke maydens bowres,

And crown their paramours

Against{5} the brydale-day, which is not long;

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

There, in a meadow, by the rivers side,

A flocke of Nymphes I chaunced to espy,

All lovely daughters of the Flood{6} thereby,

With goodly greenish locks, all loose untyde,{7}

As each had been a bryde;

And each one had a little wicker basket,

Made of fine twigs, entrayled{8} curiously,

In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,{9}

And with fine fingers cropt{10} full feateously

The tender stalkes on hye.{11}

Of every sort which in that meadow grew,

They gathered some; the violet, pallid{12} blew,

The little dazie that at evening closes,

The virgin lillie, and the primrose trew,{13}

With store{14} of vermeil roses,

To deck their bridegroomes posies{15}

Against the brydale-day, which was not long:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly till I end my song.

With that{16} I saw two Swannes of goodly hewe

Come softly swimming downe along the lee{17};

Two fairer birds I yet did never see;

The snow which doth the top of Pindus strew,

Did never whiter shew,

Nor Jove himselfe, when he a swan would be

For love of Leda, whiter did appeare.

Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he,

Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near{18}:

So purely white they were,

That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,

Seem'd foule to them, and bad his billowes spare

To wet their silken feathers, least they might

Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre,

And marre their beauties bright,

That shone as heavens light,

Against their brydale day which was not long:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

Eftsoones{19} the Nymphes, which now had flowers their fill,

Ran all in haste to see that silver brood,

As they came floating on the cristal flood;

Whom when they sawe, they stood amazed, still,

Their wondring eyes to fill;

Them seem'd they never saw a sight so fayre,

Of fowles, so lovely, that they sure did deeme

Them heavenly borne, or to be that same payre

Which through the skie draw Venus silver teeme;

For sure they did not seeme

To be begot of any earthly seede,

But rather angels, or of angels breede;

Yet were they bred of Somers-heat,{20} they say,

In sweetest season, when each flower and weede

The earth did fresh array;

So fresh they seem'd as day,

Even as their brydale day, which was not long:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly till I end my song.

Then forth they all out of their baskets drew

Great store of flowers, the honour of the field,

That to the sense did fragrant odours yeild,

All which upon those goodly birds they threw,

And all the waves did strew,

That like old Peneus{21} waters they did seeme,

When downe along by pleasant Tempes shore,

Scattred with flowres, through Thessaly they streeme,

That they appeare, through lillies plenteous store,

Like a brydes chambre flore.

Two of those Nymphes, meane while, two garlands bound

Of freshest flowres which in that mead they found,

The which presenting all in trim array,

Their snowie foreheads therewithall they crownd

Whilst one did sing this lay,

Prepar'd against that day,

Against their brydale day, which was not long:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

"Ye gentle Birdes! the worlds faire ornament

"And heavens glorie, whom this happie hower

"Doth leade unto your lovers blissfull bower,

"Ioy may you have, and gentle hearts content

"Of your loves couplement;{22}

"And let faire Venus, that is Queene of Love,

"With her heart-quelling Sonne{23} upon you smile,

"Whose smile, they say, hath vertue to remove

"All loves dislike, and friendships faultie guile

"Forever to assoile.{24}

"Let endlesse peace your steadfast hearts accord,

"And blessed plentie wait upon your bord{25};

"And let your bed with pleasures chast abound,

"That fruitfull issue may to you afford,

"Which may your foes confound

"And make your ioyes redound

"Upon your brydale day, which is not long."

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

So ended she; and all the rest around

To her redoubled{26} that her undersong,

Which said, their brydale day should not be long:

And gentle Eccho from the neighbour{27} ground

Their accents did resound.

So forth those joyous Birdes did passe along

Adowne the lee, that to them murmurde low,

As he would speake, but that he lackt a tong,

Yet did by signes his glad affection show,

Making his streame run slow.

And all the foule which in his flood did dwell

Gan flock about these twaine, that did excell

The rest, so far as Cynthia doth shend{28}

The lesser stars. So they, enranged well,

Did on those two attend,

And their best service lend

Against their wedding day, which was not long:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

At length they all to mery London came,

To mery London, my most kyndly nurse,{29}

That to me gave this lifes first native sourse,

Though from another place I take my name,

An house of auncient fame;

There when they came, whereas those bricky towres

The which on Themmes brode aged backe doe ryde,

Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers,{30}

There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde,

Till they decayd through pride;

Next whereunto there standes a stately place,{31}

Where oft I gayned giftes and goodly grace

Of that great lord, which therein wont to dwell,

Whose want too well now feels my freendles case;{32}

But ah! here fits not well{33}

Old woes, but ioyes, to tell

Against the brydale daye, which is not long:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

Yet therein now doth lodge a nobler peer,{34}

Great Englands glory, and the worlds wide wonder,

Whose dreadfull name late through all Spaine{35} did thunder,

And Hercules two Pillors{36} standing neere

Did make to quake and feare:

Faire branch of honor, flower of chevalrie!

That fillest England with thy triumphs fame,

Ioy have thou of thy noble victorie,

And endlesse happinesse of thine owne name

That promiseth the same;

That through thy prowesse, and victorious armes,

Thy country may be freed from forraine harmes,

And great Elisaes glorious name may ring

Through all the world, fill'd with thy wide alarmes,

Which some brave muse may sing

To ages following,

Upon the brydale day which is not long:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

From those high towers this noble lord issuing,

Like radiant Hesper,{37} when his golden hare

In th' ocean billows he hath bathed fayre,

Descended to the rivers open vewing,

With a great train ensuing.

Above the rest were goodly to bee seene

Two gentle Knights of lovely face and feature,

Beseeming well the bower of any queene,

With gifts of wit and ornaments of nature,

Fit for so goodly stature,

That like the Twins of Iove{38} they seem'd in sight,

Which decke the bauldricke{39} of the heavens bright;

They two forth pacing to the rivers side,

Receiv'd those two faire Brides, their loves delight;

Which,{40} at th' appointed tyde,

Each one did make his Bryde

Against their brydale day, which is not long:

Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.

NOTES.

This poem was written and published towards the end of the year 1595.

The word _prothalamium_ is from Gr. _pro_, for, and _thalamos_, a

bride-chamber, and would more properly be applied to a marriage-song

than to "a spousall verse." Spenser had already written--earlier in the

same year--the "Epithalamium" in honor of his own marriage. The singing

of a hymeneal song in connection with the wedding festivities was a very

ancient custom among the Greeks. Homer alludes to it in the "Iliad,"

XVIII, 493:

"And two fair populous towns were sculptur'd there;

In one were marriage pomp and revelry,

And brides, in gay procession, through the streets

With blazing torches from their chambers borne,

While frequent rose the hymeneal song."

See, also, Spenser's "Faerie Queene," I, xii, 38.

1. =Titans.= The word is used for Helios, the son of the Titans, Hyperion

and Thea. Observe that the apostrophe, as the sign of the possessive

case, is never used by Spenser.

=glyster.= Glisten, shine. From A.-S. _glisnian_, glow, or shine with a

soft light.

"All that glisters is not gold."

--_Shakespeare_, _Merchant of Venice_, Act ii, sc. vii.

"Know one false step is ne'er retrieved . . .

Nor all that glisters gold."

--_Gray_, _On a Favourite Cat, etc._

=fayre.= Fairly. An old form of the adverb, sanctioned by very old usage,

but not current in Spenser's time.

2. =princes court.= Spenser had had experience of the many bitter

disappointments which befall him who seeks the favor of royalty. In

"Mother Hubbard's Tale" he complains in this wise:

"Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,

What hell it is in suing long to bide:

To lose good dayes that might be better spent;

To wast long nights in pensive discontent;

To speed today, to be put back tomorrow;

To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;

To have thy Princes grace, yet want her Peeres;

To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeeres;

To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;

To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;

To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne;

To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne."

3. =silver streaming Themmes.= Sir John Denham's apostrophe to the Thames

is well known:

"Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;

Strong without rage; without overflowing full."

--_Cooper's Hill_, 189.

And Pope praises the stream in still more extravagant terms:

"No seas so rich, so gay no banks appear,

No lake so gentle, and no spring so clear."

--_Windsor Forest_, 227.

See, also, Spenser's "Faerie Queene," IV, xi.

4. =rutty.= Rooty.

5. =Against.= For, or in preparation for; to provide for. Compare Genesis

xliii. 25: "And they made ready the present against Joseph came at

noon." And Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream," Act iii, sc. ii:

"I'll charm his eyes against she do appear."

6. =Flood.= This word was often used, as here, to denote simply a river.

Pope addresses the river Thames:

"Thou, too, great father of the British floods!"

7. =all loose untyde.= Steevens says: "Brides formerly walked to church

with their hair hanging loose behind."

8. =entrayled.= Twisted, interlaced.

9. =flasket.= A long, shallow basket. Not used here as the diminutive of

_flask_. Hales says it is the name given by the fishermen of Cornwall to

the vessel in which the fish are transferred from the seine to the

"tuck-net."

10. =cropt.= Gathered, Dutch _krappen_, to cut off.

=feateously.= Neatly, skilfully. Compare Chaucer:

"And French she spake ful fayre and fetisly."

--_Canterbury Tales_, 124.

"A chambre had he in that hostelrie

Ful fetisly ydight with herbes sote."

--_Ibid._, 3205.

11. =on hye.= In haste. Probably the same as _hie_, haste.

12. =pallid.= Pale.

13. =primrose trew.= Compare Milton's "Lycidas," 142:

"The rathe primrose that forsaken dies."

And Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale," Act iv, sc. iii;

"Pale primroses that die unmarried."

14. =store.= Abundance.

=vermeil.= Vermilion. Commonly used as a noun.

15. =posies.= "Posy originally meant verses presented with a nosegay or a

bunch of flowers, and hence the term came to be applied to the flowers

themselves."

16. =With that.= At the same time.

=Swannes.= "Paulus Jovius, who died in 1552, describing the Thames, says:

'This river abounds in swans, swimming in flocks; the sight of whom and

their noise are vastly agreeable to the fleets that meet them in their

course.'"--_Knight's Cyclopedia of London._

17. =lee.= Water, or river. See "Faerie Queene," V, ii, 19:

"His corps was carried downe along the lee,

Whose waters with his filthy bloud it stayned."

Also, _Ibid._, IV, ii, 16:

"As when two warlike brigandines at sea,

With murdrous weapons arm'd to cruell fight,

Do meete together on the watry lea."

The word is of Celtic origin, and is very common as a river-name in

England, Ireland, France, and other parts of Western Europe.

18. =nor nothing near.= In early English two negatives did not destroy

each other, as now, but made the negation more emphatic.

19. =Eftsoones.= Soon after. From A.-S. _eft_, after, and _sona_, soon.

20. =Somers-heat.= The two ladies celebrated in this poem, it will be

remembered, were Lady Elizabeth and Lady Katherine Somerset.

21. The Peneus river, the most important stream in Thessaly, forces its

way through the Vale of Tempe, between Mounts Ossa and Olympus, into the

sea.

22. =loves couplement.= Marriage.

23. =heart-quelling Sonne.= Cupid.

24. =assoile.= Free from, put off.

"Through long watch, and late daies weary toile,

She soundly slept, and carefull thoughts did quite assoile."

--_Faerie Queene_, III, i, 58.

25. =bord.= "Bed" and "board" are two associated terms, very frequently

so used, which imply the performance of the two acts necessary for the

maintenance of life--sleeping and eating. See Shakespeare's "Comedy of

Errors," Act v, sc. i:

"In bed he slept not for my urging it,

At board he fed not for my urging it."

Also, "As You Like It," Act v, sc. iv:

"Wedding is great Juno's crown--

O blessed bond of board and bed!"

26. =redoubled.= Repeated.

=undersong.= Refrain, burden.

27. =neighbour.= See note 10, on Burns's "Cotter's Saturday Night."

28. =shend.= Outshine, shame, disgrace. From A.-S. _scendan_.

29. =my most kyndly nurse.= Although born in London, the poet was

"descended from the ancient and honourable family of Spencer, of

Althorpe in Northamptonshire."

30. "When the order of the Knights Templar was suppressed in Edward the

Second's reign, their London estate on the bank of the Thames was given

over to the Knights of St. John; by these it was leased to the students

of the Common Law, who, not finding a home at Cambridge or Oxford, were

at that time in want of a habitation."--_Hales._

31. =stately place.= This stood in the gardens where the Outer Temple

should have been. In 1580 it was occupied by the Earl of Leicester, and

here Spenser was for a time entertained, as he asserts in the following

line. The great lord whom he mentions was Leicester.

32. "The want of whom I feel too well in my present friendless

condition."

33. =fits not well.= It is not proper.

34. =nobler peer.= The Earl of Essex.

35. Macaulay says of Lord Essex's expedition against Spain, in 1596,

that it was "the most brilliant military exploit that was achieved on

the Continent by English arms during the long interval which elapsed

between the battle of Agincourt and that of Blenheim."

36. =Hercules two Pillors.= The rocky capes on either side of the Strait

of Gibraltar. It was said that Hercules erected them to mark the western

limit of his wanderings.

37. =Hesper.= Hesperus was the evening star, also sometimes regarded as

the morning star, and hence called by Homer the bringer of light. See

note on Lucifer, page 80 and page 189.

38. =Twins of Iove.= Castor and Pollux. Two heroic brothers who as a

reward of their devotion to each other were placed among the stars in

the constellation Gemini.

39. =bauldricke.= Belt, girdle, or sash. The "bauldricke of the heavens"

is the zodiac.

40. =Which.= In early English this pronoun was very commonly used instead

of _who_ when referring to persons.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

EDMUND SPENSER was born in London about the year 1552. He was educated

at Merchant Taylor's school, and in 1569 went to Cambridge University,

where he entered Pembroke Hall as a sizar. In the same year his first

poetical performances--translations from Petrarch and Du Bellay--were

published in a miscellaneous collection without the name of the author.

At the University he was zealously devoted to the study of Latin and

Greek literature, and there he made the acquaintance of several students

who afterwards became men of note. In 1579 he visited Sir Philip Sidney

at Penshurst, with whom he afterwards spent some time in London at the

house of Sidney's uncle, the Earl of Leicester. In 1580 was published,

but without his name, his first considerable poem, "The Shepheards

Calendar"; and in the autumn of the same year he went to Ireland as

secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the new Lord Lieutenant. With the

exception of a few brief visits made to England, the remainder of his

life was spent partly in Dublin and partly at Kilcolman Castle on a

grant of forfeited land in the county of Cork. Between 1580 and 1589 he

wrote the first three books of "The Faerie Queene," and in 1590 they

were published in London, through the influence of Sir Walter Raleigh,

who had recently visited the poet in Ireland. In the summer of 1594 he

married a lady named Elizabeth, probably the daughter of some English

settler in Ireland; and in the following year he carried to London and

published the second three books of "The Faerie Queene." At about the

same time were published his "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," and his

"Amoretti Sonnets," and an "Epithalamium" relating to his courtship and

marriage. Returning to Ireland, he resumed his labor upon the

half-completed "Faerie Queene," but it was rudely interrupted by the

breaking out of an insurrection among the Irish. In 1598 Spenser's house

was sacked and burned by the rebels, and it was with the greatest

difficulty that he and his family escaped with their lives. Indeed, it

is stated, on the authority of Ben Jonson, that one little child

perished in the flames. Spenser returned to London in poverty and great

distress, and on the 16th of January, 1599, he died in King Street,

Westminster. He was buried in the Abbey.

Spenser has been very appropriately named "the poets' poet." "For," says

Leigh Hunt, "he has had more idolatry and imitation from his brethren

than all the rest put together. The old undramatic poets, Drayton,

Browne, Drummond, and Giles and Phineas Fletcher, were as full of him as

the dramatic were of Shakespeare. Milton studied and used him, calling

him 'sage and serious Spenser'; and adding that he 'dared be known to

think him a better teacher than Scotus and Aquinas.' Cowley said he

became a poet by reading him. Dryden claimed him for a master. Pope said

he read him with as much pleasure when he was old as when he was young.

Collins and Gray loved him. Thomson, Shenstone, and a host of inferior

writers expressly imitated him. Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Keats made

use of his stanza. Coleridge eulogized him."

Hazlitt says, "Of all the poets, Spenser is the most poetical." And

Taine declares that no modern is more like Homer than he.

With reference to the peculiar forms of language--comparatively obsolete

even when "The Faerie Queene" was composed--which are so marked a

characteristic of Spenser's poetry, Hales says: "The subject he chose

for his great work drew him into the midst of the old times of chivalry,

and the literature that belonged to them. With such a subject the older

forms of the language seemed to consort better. To him, too, perhaps, as

to Virgil, the older words and word-forms seemed to give elevation and

dignity. Moreover, an older dialect was probably to some extent his

vernacular, as he had probably passed his youth in Lancashire. Lastly,

the only great poet who had preceded him, his great model, the Tityrus

of whom he 'his songs did lere,' was Chaucer. To him Chaucer's language

may have seemed the one language of English poetry."

REFERENCES: Warton's _History of English Poetry_; Hazlitt's _Lectures on

the English Poets_; Craik's _Spenser and his Poetry_; Morley's _English

Writers_.

Thomas Wyatt.

A LOVE SONG.

THE LOVER COMPLAINETH OF THE UNKINDNESS OF HIS LOVE.

My lute, awake! perform the last

Labor that thou and I shall waste;

And end that I have now begun:

And when this song is sung and past,

My lute! be still, for I have done.

As to be heard where ear is none;

As lead to grave in marble stone,

My song may pierce her heart as soon;

Should we then sing, or sigh, or moan?

No, no, my lute! for I have done.

The rock doth not so cruelly,

Repulse the waves continually,

As she my suit and affection:

So that I am past remedy;

Whereby my lute and I have done.

Proud of the spoil that thou hast got

Of simple hearts thorough Love's shot,

By whom, unkind, thou hast them won;

Think not he hath his bow forgot,

Although my lute and I have done.

Vengeance shall fall on thy disdain,

That makest but game of earnest pain;

Trow not alone under the sun

Unquit to cause thy lovers plain,

Although my lute and I have done.

May chance thee lie withered and old

In winter nights, that are so cold,

Plaining in vain unto the moon;

Thy wishes then dare not be told:

Care then who list, for I have done.

And then may chance thee to repent

The time that thou hast lost and spent,

To cause thy lovers sigh and swoon:

Then shalt thou know beauty but lent,

And wish and want, as I have done.

Now cease, my lute! This is the last

Labor that thou and I shall waste;

And ended is that we begun:

Now is thy song both sung and past;

My lute, be still, for I have done.

THE COURTIER'S LIFE.

In court to serve, decked with fresh array,

Of sugared meats feeling the sweet repast;

The life in banquets and sundry kinds of play,

Amid the press of worldly looks to waste:

Hath with it joined oft times such bitter taste,

That whoso joyes such kind of life to hold,

In prison joyes, fettered with chains of gold.

The Earl of Surrey.

FROM THE FOURTH BOOK OF VIRGIL'S "ÆNEID."

--At the threshold of her chamber door

The Carthage lords did on the Queen attend:

The trampling steed, with gold and purple trapped,

Chewing the foaming bit there fiercely stood.

Then issued she, awaited with great train,

Clad in a cloak of Tyre embroidered rich.

Her quiver hung behind her back, her tress

Knotted in gold, her purple vesture eke

Buttoned with gold. The Trojans of her train

Before her go, with gladsome Iulus.

Æneas eke, the goodliest of the rout,

Makes one of them, and joineth close the throng.

Like when Apollo leaveth Lycia,

His wint'ring place, and Xanthus, stood likewise,

To visit Delos his mother's mansion,

Repairing eft and furnishing her quire.

The Candians and the folk of Driopes,

With painted Agathyrsi shout and cry,

Environing the altars round about,

When that he walks upon Mount Cynthus' top,

His sparkled tress repressed with garlands soft

Of tender leaves, and trussed up in gold,

His quiver and darts clattering behind his back--

So fresh and lusty did Æneas seem.

But to the hills and wild holts when they came

From the rock's top the driven savage rose.

So, from the hills above on the other side,

Through the wide lawns they gan to take their course.

The harts likewise, in troops taking their flight,

Raising the dust, the mountain-fast forsake.

The child Iulus, blithe of his swift steed

Amids the plain, now pricks by them, by these;

And to the encounter wisheth oft, in mind,

The foaming boar instead of fearful beasts,

Or lion brown, might from the hill descend.