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And the Great Castle smite so sore withal,

That it shall make him shake, and shortly learn to fall.

"But yet the end is not"-There Merlin stayed.

PRINCE ARTHUR'S ADDRESS TO NIGHT.

BOOK III. CANTO IV.

"NIGHT! thou foul mother of annoyance sad,
Sister of heavy Death, and nurse of Woe,
Which was begot in Heaven, but for thy bad
And brutish shape thrust down to Hell below,
Where, by the grim flood of Cocytus2 slow,
Thy dwelling is in Erebus's black house,
(Black Erebus, thy husband, is the foe
Of all the gods,) where thou ungracious
Half of thy days doest lead in horror hideous;

"What had th' Eternal Maker need of thee
The world in his continual course to keep,
That doest all things deface, nor lettest see
The beauty of his work? Indeed, in sleep
The slothful body, that doth love to steep
His lustless limbs, and drown his baser mind,
Doth praise thee oft, and oft from Stygian deep
Calls thee his goddess, in his error blind,

And great dame Nature's handmaid cheering every kind.

"But well I wot that to an heavy heart
Thou art the root and nurse of bitter cares,
Breeder of new, renewer of old smarts;
Instead of rest thou lendest railing tears;
Instead of sleep thou sendest troublous fears
And dreadful visions, in the which alive
The dreary image of sad Death appears:
So from the weary spirit thou doest drive
Desiréd rest, and men of happiness deprive.

"Under thy mantle black there hidden lie
Light-shunning Theft, and traitorous Intent,
Abhorréd Bloodshed, and vile Felony,
Shameful Deceit, and Danger imminent,
Foul Horror, and eke hellish Dreariment:
All these I wot in thy protection be,
And light do shun, for fear of being shent :

1 See Keightley's Mythology, p. 41.

* One of the infernal rivers. Greek kokuo, to lament.

"Cocytus named of lamentation loud
Heard on that rueful shore."-Milton.
A deity of Hell.-See Keightley.
Rolling, trickling.

4 Without desire or enjoyment. See note 1, p. 32.

For light alike is loth'd of them and thee;

And all, that lewdness love, do hate the light to see.

"For Day discovers all dishonest ways,
And sheweth each thing as it is indeed:
The praises of high God he fair displays,
And his large bounty rightly doth areed :1
Day's dearest children be the blessed seed
Which Darkness shall subdue and Heaven win:
Truth is his daughter; he her first did breed,

Most sacred virgin without spot of sin:

Our life is day; but death with darkness doth begin."

THE GARDEN OF ADONIS.

BOOK III. CANTO VI.

THERE is continual spring, and harvest there
Continual, both meeting at one time:

For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear,
And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime,
And eke at once the heavy trees they climb,
Which seem to labour under their fruit's load:
The while the joyous birds make their pastime
Amongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode,
And their true loves without suspicion tell abroad.

Right in the middest of that paradise
There stood a stately mount, on whose round top
A gloomy grove of myrtle trees did rise,
Whose shady boughs sharp steel did never lop,
Nor wicked beasts their tender buds did crop,

But, like a girlond,2 compasséd the height,

And from their fruitful sides sweet gum did drop,
That all the ground, with precious dew bedight,3

Threw forth most dainty odours and most sweet delight.

And in the thickest covert of that shade

There was a pleasant arbour, not by art

But of the trees' own inclination made,

Which knitting their rank branches part to part,

With wanton ivy-twine entrailed athwart,

And eglantine and caprifole among,

Fashioned above within their inmost part,

That neither Phoebus' beams could through them throng,

Nor Eolus' sharp blast could work them any wrong.*

1 Declare.

2 Garland.

3 Adorned.

♦ These stanzas form merely a garbled extract from a gorgeous fiction of philosophical mythology.

F

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My love is now awake out of her dreams,

And her fair eyes, like stars that dimmed were
With darksome cloud, now show their goodly beams,
More bright than Hesperus his head doth rear.
Come now, ye damsels, daughters of delight,
Help quickly her to dight!

But first come, ye fair Hours, which were begot
In Jove's sweet paradise of day and night,
Which do the seasons of the year allot,

And all that ever in this world is fair,
Do make and still repair!

And ye three handmaids of the Cyprian Queen,
The which do still adorn her beauty's pride,
Help to adorn my beautifulest bride!
And as ye her array, still throw between
Some graces to be seen.

And, as ye use to Venus, to her sing,

The whiles the woods shall answer and your echoes ring.

Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,

Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks,
And blesses her with his two happy hands,

How the red roses flush up in her cheeks,
And the pure snow with goodly vermeil stain
Like crimson dyed in grain;
That even the angels, which continually
About the sacred altar do remain,
Forget their service and about her fly,

Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair
The more on it they stare:

But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,
Are governéd with goodly modesty,

That suffers not one look to glance away,
Which may let in a little thought unsound.
Why blush ye, Love, to give to me your hand
The pledge of all your band?

Sing, ye sweet angels, Alleluia sing,

That all the woods may answer and your echoés ring!

And ye, high heavens, the temple of the gods,
In which a thousand torches flaming bright
Do burn, that to us, wretched earthly clods,
In dreadful darkness lend desired light;
And all ye powers which in the same remain,
More than we men can feign,

Pour out your blessing on us plenteously,
And happy influence upon us rain,
That we may rise a large posterity;

Which from the earth, which may they long possess
In lasting happiness,

Up to your haughty palaces may mount,

And, for the guerdon of their glorious merit,
May heavenly tabernacles there inherit,
Of blessed saints for to increase the count!

So let us rest, sweet Love, in hope of this,
And cease till then our timely joys to sing,
The woods no more us answer, nor our echo ring.

BONNET XXVI.

Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere;
Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough;
Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh near;
Sweet is the firbloom, but his branches rough;
Sweet is the cyprus, but his rind is tough;
Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;
Sweet is the broom flower, but yet sour enough;
And sweet is moly, but his root is ill;
So, every sweet, with sour is tempered still,
That maketh it be coveted the more:
For easy things that may be got at will
Most sorts of men do set but little store.
Why then should I account of little pain,
That endless pleasure shall unto me gain?

FROM THE RUINS OF TIME.

[Verulam bewails the ruin of her glories.]
I was that city, which the garland wore
Of Britain's pride, delivered unto me
By Roman victors, which it won of yore,
Though nought at all but ruins now I be,
And lie in mine own ashes as ye see:
Verlame I was; what boots it what I was,
Since now I am but woods and wasteful grass?

Oh vain world's glory, and unsteadfast state
Of all that lives on face of sinful earth,
Which, from their first until their utmost date,
Taste no one hour of happiness or mirth,

Camden's Britannia

Near St Albans in Hertfordshire.-See Tacit. Annal. xiv. 33. (Gibson), Col. 296 and 305. For the glory of Verulam, "When (well near) in her pride Troynovant she scorned," see Drayton's Polyolbion, Song xvi. Troynovant is the British name of London. But the greatest of Verulam's glories is Spencer's contemporary, Fran

cis Bacon.

1 Limit.

But like as, at the ingate of their birth,
They crying creep out of their mother's womb,
So, wailing, back go to their woeful tomb.

Why then doth flesh, a bubble glass of breath,
Hunt after honour and advancement vain,
And rear a trophy for devouring death,
With so great labour and long lasting pain,
As if his days for ever should remain?
Sith all, that in this world is great or gay,
Doth as a vapour vanish and decay.

Look back who list unto the former ages,
And call to count what is of them become;
Where be those learned wits and antique sages,
Which of all wisdom knew the perfect sum?
Where those great warriors which did overcome
The world with conquest of their might and main,
And made one meer1 of th' earth and of their reign?

What now is of the Assyrian Lioness,

Of whom no footing now on earth appears?
What of the Persian Bear's outrageousness,
Whose memory is quite worn out with years?
Who of the Grecian Libbard now ought hears,
That overran the East with greedy power,
And left his whelps their kingdoms to devour ?3

And where is that same great Seven-headed beast,*
That made all nations vassals of her pride,

To fall before her feet at her behest,

And in the neck of all the world did ride?

Where doth she all that wondrous wealth now hide?

With her own weight down presséd now she lies,
And by her heaps her hugeness testifies.

Oh Rome! thy ruin I lament and rue,

And, in thy fall, my fatal overthrow,

That whilom was, whilst Heavens with equal5 view
Deigned to behold me, and their gifts bestow,
The picture of thy pride in pompous show;

And of the whole world, as thou wast the Empress,
So I of this small northern world was Princess.

To tell the beauty of my buildings fair,
Adorned with purest gold and precious stone;

2 Leopard.

The wars of Alexander's successors. Compare Lyndsay's "Monarchy."-See p 44. Compare also Fletcher's imitation of this passage in the Purple Island, Canto VII. 4 Rome.

5 Kind, propitious; in the sense of acquus, Lat.

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