With praiers loud importuning the skie,

Whence he them heares; and, when he list shew grace
Does graunt them grace that otherwise would die.
So Love is lord of all the world by right,
And rules their creatures by his powerfull saw1;
All being made the vassals of his might,
Through secret sence which therto doth them draw.
Thus ought all lovers of their lord to deeme;
And with chaste heart to honor him alway:
But who so else doth otherwise esteeme,
Are outlawes, and his lore do disobay.

For their desire is base, and doth not merit
The name of love, but of disloyal lust:

Ne mongst true lovers they shall place inherit,
But as exuls 2 out of his court be thrust."

So having said, Melissa spake at will;
"Colin, thou now full deeply hast divynd
Of Love and Beautie; and, with wondrous skill,
Hast Cupid selfe depainted in his kynd.
To thee are all true lovers greatly bound,
That doest their cause so mightily defend;
But most, all wemen are thy debtors found,
That doest their bountie still so much commend."
"That ill (said Hobbinol) they him requite,
For having loved ever one most deare:
He is repayd with scorne and foule despite,

1 Saw, sentence, decree.

2 Exuls, exiles.

That yrkes each gentle heart which it doth heare."

"Indeed (said Lucid) I have often heard

Fair Rosalind of divers fowly blamed

For being to that swaine too cruell hard;

That her bright glorie else hath much defamed.
But who can tell what cause had that faire Mayd

Tn use him so that used her so well;

Or who with blame can iustly her upbrayd,

For loving not? for who can love compell?

2

And, sooth to say, it is foolhardie thing,

3

Rashly to wyten creatures so divine;

For demigods they be, and first did spring
From heaven, though graft in frailnesse feminine.
And well I wote, that oft I heard it spoken,
How one, that fairest Helene did revile,
Through iudgment of the gods to been ywroken,"
Lost both his eyes, and so remaynd long while,
Till he recanted had his wicked rimes,
And made amends to her with treble praise.
Beware therefore, ye groomes, I read betimes,
How rashly blame of Rosalind ye raise."

6

"Ah! shepheards, (then said Colin,) ye ne weet' How great a guilt upon your heads ye draw,

To make so bold a doome, with words unmeet,

1 Yrkes, grieves.

Wyten, blame.

⚫ Wote, know. 5 Ywroken, avenged, punished. • Read, advise.

2 Sooth, truth.

"Weet, know.

Ver. 920-How one, &c.]

This story is told of the poet Stesichorus.

Of thing celestiall which ye never saw.

For she is not like as the other crew

Of shepheards daughters which emongst you bee,
But of divine regard and heavenly hew,
Excelling all that ever ye did see.

Not then to her that scorned thing so base,
But to my selfe the blame that lookt so hie:
So hie her thoughts as she her selfe have place,
And loath each lowly thing with loftie eie.
Yet so much grace let her vouchsafe to grant
To simple swaine, sith her I may not love :
Yet that I may her honour paravant,2

1

And praise her worth, though far my wit above.
Such grace shall be some guerdon for the griefe,
And long affliction which I have endured:
Such grace sometimes shall give me some reliefe,
And ease of paine which cannot be recured.
And ye, my fellow shepheards, which do see
And hear the languours of my too long dying,
Unto the world for ever witnesse bee,
That hers I die, nought to the world denying,
This simple trophe of her great conquest."-

So, having ended, he from ground did rise;
And after him uprose eke all the rest.
All loth to part, but that the glooming skies
Warnd them to draw their bleating flocks to rest.
Trophe, trophy.

1 Sith, since.

2 Paravant, publicly.

CHAPTER II.

WE remark, first, that by shepherds, in this poem, we are to understand Shepherds of Arcadia; and these again are honest men, and sometimes poets, who are supposed to be true to Nature, their sovereign mistress. Their so-called "oaten pipe," is a figure for their musical or harmonious spirits, which are supposed to be attuned to one universal harmony, by which they harmonize with each other, and are thus classed together as "peers," line 5 of the poem. But, although thus classed together, they manifest every diversity, as among each other, just as we know the poets of Spenser's age did at the time when, in the character of Colin Clouts, the poet represents himself as accosted by one whom he calls a groom, "hight" Hobbinol (line 15), with a request to detail his adventures during a certain journey, telling him how sad a time his absence had given his friends, during which (line 23):

The woods were heard to wail full many a time,
And all the birds with silence to complain.
The fields with faded flowers did seem to mourn,
And all the flocks from feeding to refrain.

The running waters even wept for his return, &c.

The writer of these remarks is led to suppose that the touching beauty of this lament does not lie in the mere fact that some shepherds have been moved to this mode of expressing their grief for the temporary absence of a companion, but he sees in these lines the peculiar grief which marks a poet's sense of deprivation, when what is called the spirit has been withdrawn. He is reminded by these lines of the 97th Sonnet of Shakespeare:

"How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

What old December's bareness everywhere!

And yet this time remov'd was summer's time

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute;