That here in sorrow art foresunk so deep, That at thy sight I can but sigh and weep.' For forth she paced in her fearful tale: 'Come, come,' quoth she, 'and see what I shall show, Come, hear the plaining and the bitter bale Of worthy men by Fortune overthrow : They were but shades that erst in mind thou roll'd: Flat down I fell, and with all reverence A goddess, sent by godly providence, * In earthly shape thus show'd herself to me, To wail and rue this world's uncertainty: And, while I honour'd thus her godhead's might, With plaining voice these words to me she shright. 'I shall thee guide first to the grisly lake, Where thou shalt see, and hear, the plaint they make Thence come we to the horrour and the hell, With sighs, and tears, sobs, shrieks, and all yfear, * * * * Lo here, quoth Sorrow, princes of renown, * * COMPLAINT OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. So long as fortune would permit the same, Lo, what avails in riches floods that flows? And simple sort must bear it as it is. Take heed by me that blith'd in baleful bliss: For hard mishaps, that happens unto such For of my birth, my blood was of the best, First born an earl, then duke by due descent: To swing the sway in court among the rest, Dame Fortune me her rule most largely lent, And kind with courage so my corpse had blent, That lo, on whom but me did she most smile? And whom but me, lo, did she most beguile? Now hast thou heard the whole of my unhap, SLEEP. By him lay heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death, The body's rest, the quiet of the heart, Reaver of sight, and yet in whom we see King Croesus' pomp, and Irus' poverty. EDMUND SPENSER. [EDMUND SPENSER was born in London about 1552. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School: his first poetical performances, translations from Petrarch and Du Bellay, published without his name in a miscellaneous collection, belong to the time of his leaving school in 1569. From that year to 1576 he was at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. In 1579 he was in London, acquainted with Philip Sidney, and in Lord Leicester's household. In 1580 was published, but without his name, The Shepheards Calender; and in the autumn of that year he went to Ireland with Lord Grey of Wilton, as his private secretary. The remainder of his life, with the exception of short visits to England, was spent in Ireland, whem he held various subordinate offices, and where he settled on a gran forfeited land at Kilcolman in the county of Cork. In 1589 he alter the panied Sir Walter Ralegh to London, and in 1590 published the fed on in books of The Faerie Queene. In 1591 he returned to Irse a new form of laneous collection of compositions of earlier and laight-line one of the was published in London. In June 1594 he mawedly designed to him1595, he again visited London, and in Jan. 1 the instalment of The Faerie Queene (iv-vi). W poem. It was not merely published his Colin Clouts Come Home ag adventures, like the Orlando. Court in 1589-90, and his Amoretti Sonniebration of a great historical his courtship and marriage. At the Gerusalemme. It professed to and burnt by the Munster rebels, al philosophy. It was planned, and London. He died at Westminsterunfolded, in order to pourtray and Abbey.] 1 to exhibit philosophical speculations. book, not for delight merely, but for Spenser was the first who of poetry was characteristically in harReformation made himsel spirit of the time in England, which compared with that of Cntellectual efforts, but which expected in then stood at the head more than amuse, and had fashion on its had revived under the rte of frivolity on what did not bear this a burst of poetical enthtew. Spenser thought it right to declare to poetry. Versification down in writing, the aim and intention of Court circles. The taribed it as a work which 'is in heroical verse in ballads, and among Faery Queen to represent all the moral deal of bad poetry there was some written which was genuine and beautiful, and which has survived to charm us still. The poetical spirit and feeling came out most naturally in short love poems, of which many of great grace and fire are preserved in the collections of the time; the other form which it took at this time was the expression of the pathetic incidents and conditions of human greatness and fortune. Sir Philip Sidney, one of the most accomplished and most rising of the young men about the Court, encouraged an interest in poetry in his circle of friends, and some of them, Edward Dyer and Fulke Greville, have, like Sidney himself, left poems of merit. But while there was much poetical writing, and not a little poetical power even among men engaged in the business and wars of the time, such as Walter Ralegh, no successful attempt had been made to produce a great poetical work which might challenge comparison with the Canterbury Tales at home, or the Orlando Furioso abroad. Spenser was the first who had the ambition and also the power for such an enterprise. His arliest work, The Shepherd's Calendar, a series of what were led pastoral poems, after the fashion of the Italian models and English imitators, partly original, partly translated or para1, though very immature and very unequal in its composition, Flat to be something more considerable as a poetical A very anything which the sixteenth century had yet Small keephe 'new poet' became almost a recognised Or whom shehad shown, not merely by a few spirited Of high renown sustained work, that he could write so So, dead alive, of fame and the associations of The m even to the end of his career. The body's rest, the qun for its pastoral colouring and The travail's ease, the sive himself the rustic name by And of our life on earth tin its dialogues, and called Reaver of sight, and yet in Things oft that tide, and ong beyond the expectations ingdoms to be won by it. |