story; but what a filling-up! Then the verse in which it is told, that magical "Spenserian stanza” which seems to wile us on so fitly through the quiet luscious labyrinths and the measureless gleamings and openings of the wood-embosomed dream!

FROM THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.

COLIN CLOUT,1 or JANUARY.

A shepherd's boy, (no better do him call,)
When Winter's wasteful night was almost spent,
All in a sunshine day, as did befall,

Led forth his flock that had been long y-pent :2
So faint they wox3 and feeble in the fold,
That now unnethes1 their feet could them uphold.

All as the sheep, such was the shepherd's look,
For pale and wan he was, aias the while!
May-seem he loved, or else some care he took;
Well couth he tune his pipe and frame his style:
Tho to a hill his fainting flock he led,

And thus him plained, the while his sheep there fed :—

"Ye gods of love, that pity lovers' pain,

(If any gods the pain of lovers pity!)

Look from above where you in joys remain,

And bow your ears unto my doleful ditty!

And Pan, thou shepherd's god, that once didst love,
Pity the pains that thou thyself didst prove!

"Thou barren ground, whom winter's wrath hath wasted, Art made a mirror to behold my plight :

Whilom3 thy fresh spring flowered; and after hasted
Thy summer proud, with daffadillies dight;"
And now is come thy winter's stormy state,
Thy mantle marred wherein thou maskedst late.

"Such rage as Winter's reigneth in my heart,
My life-blood freezing with unkindly cold;
Such stormy stours 10 do breed my baleful smart,
As if my year were waste and woxen old;

1 This rustic name, which Spenser adopted for himself in his pastorals, was borrowed from Skelton.-(See p. 149.)

4 Scarcely.

5 Could.

8 Long since, formerly.

2 In fold.
3 Grew.
6 Then.
7 Complained.
9 Decked. 10 Tumults.

And yet, alas! but now my spring begun,
And yet, alas! it is already done.

"You naked trees, whose shady leaves are lost,
Wherein the birds were wont to build their bower,
And now are clothed with moss and hoary frost,
Instead of blossoms wherewith your buds did flower;
I see your tears that from your boughs do rain,
Whose drops in dreary icicles remain.

"All so my lustful leaf is dry and sere ;
My timely buds with wailing all are wasted;
The blossom which my branch of youth did bear
With breathed sighs is blown away and blasted;
And from mine eyes the drizzling tears descend,
As on your boughs the icicles depend.

"Thou feeble flock, whose fleece is rough and rent,
Whose knees are weak through fast and evil fare,
Mayst witness well, by thy ill government,
Thy maister's mind is overcome with care:

Thou weak, I wan; thou lean, I quite forlorn ;
With mourning pine I; you with pining mourn.

"A thousand sithes1 I curse that careful2 hour
Wherein I longed the neighbour Town to see;
And eke ten thousand sithes I bless the stour3
Wherein I saw so fair a sight as she:

Yet all for naught: such sight hath bred my bane.
Ah, God! that love should breed both joy and pain i

"It is not Hobbinol wherefore I plain,
All-be my love he seek with daily suit;
His clownish gifts and courtsies I disdain,
His kids, his cracknels, and his early fruit.
Ah, foolish Hobbinol! thy gifts been vain ;
Colin them gives to Rosalind again.

"I love thilk lass (alas! why do I love?),
And am forlorn (alas! why am I lorn?);
She deigns not my good will, but doth reprove,
And of my rural music holdeth scorn;

Shepherds devise she hateth as the snake,
And laughs the songs that Colin Clout doth make.

1 Times.

4 Courtesies.

2 Full of care.

3 Moment of tumult, passion. 5 The manner of shepherds, i.e. wooing in verse.

as

"Wherefore, my pipe, all-be rude Pan thou please,
Yet, for thou pleaseth not where most I would;
And thou, unlucky Muse, that wont'st to ease
My musing mind, yet canst not when thou should;
Both pipe and Muse shall sore the while abye."1
So broke his oaten pipe, and down did lie.

By that, the welkèd Phoebus2 gan avail 3
His weary wain:a and now the frosty night
Her mantle black through heaven gan overhail :
Which seen, the pensive Boy, half in despite,

Arose, and homeward drove his sunnèd sheep,
Whose hanging heads did seem his careful case to weep.

FROM COLIN CLOUT'S COME HOME AGAIN.5
THE LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND PASTORALLY
DESCRIBED.

"Why," said Alexis then, "what needeth she,
That is so great a shepherdess herself,
And hath so many shepherds in her fee,
To hear thee sing, a simple silly elf?

Or be the shepherds which do serve her lazy,
That they list not their merry pipes apply?
Or be their pipes untuneable and crazy,
That they cannot her honour worthily?"

Ah, nay,” said Colin, “neither so, nor so ;
For better shepherds be not under sky,
Nor better hable,8 when they list to blow
Their pipes, aloud her name to glorify.

2 Clouded sun.

3 To drop.

4 Chariot.

1 Pay the penalty. 5 This poem contains, in a pastoral guise, a very literal account of Spenser's first visit to England, in the years 1590 and 1591. The poet represents himself "Colin Clout," borrowing the name from his own first Eclogue of 1579. (See p. 223.) Colin, "the shepherd's boy (best knowen by that name)," is sitting, after an absence of many months, among his fellow-swains, his Irish friends, and is charming their "greedy listful ears" by the "curious skill" of his oaten pipe. One of these swains, "hight Hobbinol," begs him to repeat to them the "passed fortunes" which befell him in his late voyage. Accordingly the story is told, of Raleigh's visit to Kilcolman, their sea-voyage to England, and of the poet's adventures and friendships in the court of "Great Cynthia"-with occasional interruptions in its course from an inquisitive "Alexis," a "Cuddy," or a "Thestylis." The poem is rich in personal allusion and in literary criticism. To the contemporaries of Spenser the rustic names he chose for the "nymphs' and "shepherds" of Cynthia's "noble crew," were, we may suppose, a riddle easy to read; but at this date it is often difficult, sometimes impossible, to refer them to their rightful owners. 6 Queen Elizabeth.

7 The Queen was the authoress of some verses which, though not very poetical, fairly entitled her to the appellation of "shepherdess." 8 Able. Q

There is good Harpalus,1 now woxen agèd
In faithful service of fair Cynthia ;

And there is Corydon, though meanly wagèd,
Yet hablest wit of most I know this day.
And there is sad Alcyon,3 bent to mourn,
Though fit to frame an everlasting ditty;

Whose gentle spright for Daphne's death doth tourn1
Sweet lays of love to endless plaints of pity.
Ah, pensive boy! pursue that brave conceit
In thy sweet Eglantine of Mereflure;
Lift up thy notes unto their wonted height,
That may thy Muse and mates to mirth allure.
There eke is Palin, worthy of great praise,
All-be he envy at my rustic quill:5

And there is pleasing Alcon, could he raise
His tunes from lays to matter of more skill.
And there is old Palemon,' free from spite,
Whose careful pipe may make the hearer rue;
Yet he himself may ruèd be more right,
That sung so long until quite hoarse he grew.
And there is Alabaster, throughly taught
In all this skill, though knowen yet to few;
Yet, were he known to Cynthia 10 as he ought,
His Eliseis would be read anew.

Who lives that can match that heroic song
Which he hath of that mighty Princess made?
O dreaded Dread! do not thyself that wrong,
To let thy fame lie so in hidden shade:
But call it forth, O call him forth to thee,
To end thy glory which he hath begun!
That, when he finished hath as it should be,
No braver Poem can be under sun;

Nor Po nor Tiber's swans so much renowned,
Nor all the brood of Greece so highly praised,

Can match that Muse when it with bays is crowned,
And to the pitch of her perfection raised.

1 Possibly Barnaby Googe, who was about fifty-six years old in 1591, when this was written, and some seventeen years Spenser's senior. (See p. 201.) 2 Abraham Fraunce. (See p. 304.)

3 A Sir Arthur Gorges, author of an unpublished poem called Eglantine of Meriflure. Spenser wrote an Elegy upon the death of his wife. 4 Turn.

5 Supposed by Malone to mean Peele (see p. 213), in reference to Peele's Arraignment of Paris, 1584, and to the character of Colin Clout in that pastoral play; but Todd is of opinion that Spenser refers in this couplet to Thomas Chaloner. 6 Thomas Watson. (See p. 289.) 195.)

7 Thomas Churchyard. (See p. William Alabaster, a poet and scholar, whose Eliseis, a poem in Elizabeth's praise, Spenser is anxious to bring to the Queen's notice.

9 Thoroughly.

10 The Queen.

And there is a new shepherd, late up-sprong,
The which doth all afore him far surpass;
Appearing well in that well-tuned song,
Which late he sung unto a scornful lass.
Yet doth his trembling Muse but lowly fly,
As daring not too rashly mount on hight,
And doth her tender plumes as yet but try
In love's soft lays and looser thought's delight;
Then rouse thy feathers quickly, Daniel,1
And to what course thou please thyself advance;
But most, me seems, thy accent will excel
In tragic plaints and passionate mischance.
And there that Shepherd of the Ocean is,2
That spends his wit in love's consuming smart :
Full sweetly tempered is that Muse of his,
That can empierce a Prince's mighty heart.
There also is-ah, no, he is not now!
But since I said "he is" he quite is gone;
Amyntas3 quite is gone, and lies full low,
Having his Amaryllis left to moan.
Help, O ye shepherds! help ye all in this,
Help Amaryllis this her loss to mourn;
Her loss is yours, your loss Amyntas is,
Amyntas, flower of shepherds' pride, forlorn :5
He, whilst he lived, was the noblest swain
That ever pipèd in an oaten quill:

Both did he other which could pipe maintain,
And eke could pipe himself with passing skill.
And there, though last not least, is Aetion;7
A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found:
Whose Muse, full of high thoughts' invention,
Doth, like himself, heroically sound.

1 Samuel Daniel. (See p. 307.)

2 Sir Walter Raleigh. (See p. 269.)

3 Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, fifth Earl of Derby, who died in 1594. He succeeded to the earldom only the year before his death, but, as Lord Strange, had been known as a poet of note, and a munificent patron of literature and the stage.

4 The wife of Lord Strange was Alice, youngest of the three daughters of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, Northamptonshire, kinswomen of the poet. This lady, Lady Strange till 1593, then Countess of Derby for a few months, and known for the rest of her life as the Dowager Countess of Derby, is renowned in our literary history. Spenser was proud of the "bands of affinity" which connected him with the Spencers of Althorpe, dedicated poems to each of the three sisters, and sang their praise in his Colin Clout's Come Home Again. widowed "Amaryllis" married again, in 1600, Lord Keeper Egerton, afterwards Lord Chancellor to King James. She lived to be the heroine of Milton's Arcades, written about 1631. 5 Lost for ever.

6 He was a patron of poets as well as himself a poet.

The

7 Critics differ in deciphering this passage, and it is uncertain whether it applies to Drayton (see p. 311), Chapman (see p. 293), or Shakespeare.