Tell beauty how she blasteth,
Tell favour how it falters.
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.
Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness:
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in over-wiseness.
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.
Tell physic of her boldness,
Tell skill it is pretension,
Tell charity of coldness,
Tell law it is contention.
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.
Tell fortune of her blindness,
Tell nature of decay,
Tell friendship of unkindness,
Tell justice of delay.
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming,
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming.
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.
Tell faith it fled the city,
Tell how the country erreth, Tell, manhood shakes off pity, Tell, virtue least preferreth. And if they do reply, Spare not to give the lie.
So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing: Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing;
Yet stab at thee who will,
No stab the soul can kill.
THE PILGRIMAGE.
GIVE me my scallop-shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon;
My scrip of joy, immortal diet;
My bottle of salvation;
My gown of glory, hope's true gauge,
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage!
Blood must be my body's 'balmer,
No other balm will there be given;
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,
Travelleth towards the land of Heaven;
Over the silver mountains
Where spring the nectar fountains.
There will I kiss the bowl of bliss,
And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken hill.
My soul will be a-dry before,
But after, it will thirst no more.
Then by that happy blissful day,
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have cast off their rags of clay,
And walk apparelled fresh like me.
I'll take them first to quench their thirst,
And taste of nectar's suckets
At those clear wells where sweetness dwells
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.
And when our bottles and all we
Are filled with immortality,
Then the blest paths we'll travel,
Strewed with rubies thick as gravel-
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral, and pearly bowers.
From thence to Heaven's bribeless hall,
Where no corrupted voices brawl;
No conscience molten into gold,
No forged accuser, bought or sold,
No cause deferred, no vain-spent journey,
For there Christ is the King's Attorney;
Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath angels, but no fees;
And when the grand twelve million jury
Of our sins, with direful fury,
'Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.
Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder!
Thou giv'st salvation even for alms-
Not with a bribed lawyer's palms.
And this is mine eternal plea
To Him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
That since my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread,
Set on my soul an everlasting head:
Then am I, like a palmer, fit
To tread those blest paths which before I writ.
Of death and judgment, heaven and hell,
Who oft doth think, must needs die well.
SPENSER was one of the great men who, from age to age, mark out the general course of poetry, and who take a place among the few selected from the illustrious of every age, whom we look up to as the instructors of all time. He claimed to be descended from a noble family, though the chief evidence of the truth of the assertion is, that he took his place in Queen Elizabeth's court as a gentleman of birth. He was born in East Smithfield about the year 1553, in humble circumstances. In his sixteenth year he was entered as a sizar at Cambridge, where he continued seven years, and where he took the degree of A.M. After leaving Cambridge he obtained an introduction to Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated his first poem, "The Shepherd's Calendar," published in 1579. He seems to have been employed at court, much to his distaste, on various state missions, and experienced much of the discomfort of a hanger-on. In 1580, however, he was appointed Secretary to the Viceroy of Ireland; and six years afterwards he obtained a grant of forfeited land in the county of Cork, where he fixed his residence in the Old Castle of Kilcolman. Here he brought home his wife, the "Elizabeth" of his sonnets; and here he wrote the greater part of his immortal poem, the Faery Queen. The first part was published in 1589, and met with an enthusiastic reception. Queen Elizabeth at once settled a pension of L.50 a year on the poet. In 1596 the second part of the Faery Queen issued from the press. It was intended to have been continued, but was never completed. But fortune, which had so long befriended him, now changed; the Tyrone rebellion broke out in 1598, his house was burned by the rebels, and his infant child perished in the flames. He had to flee with his wife to England in the greatest destitution, and, dejected and heart-broken, he died in the following year, in the forty-fifth year of his age, in a small lodging in London.
His remains were laid beside those of Chaucer in Poet's Corner. term Faery is used by Spenser to denote something existing in the regions of fancy, and the Faery Queen is the impersonation of glory; the knights of Faeryland are the twelve virtues, who are the champions of the queen."
UNA AND THE RED-CROSS KNIGHT.
A GENTLE knight was pricking on the plaine,
Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine,
The cruel markes of many a bloody fielde;
Yet armes till that time did he never wield :
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:
Full jolly knight he seemed, and faire did sit,
As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt. jousts And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore,
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living ever, him adored :
Upon his shield the like was also scored,
For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had.
Right faithfull, true he was in deede and word;
But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.
Upon a great adventure he was bond,
That greatest Gloriana to him gave
(That greatest, glorious Queene of Faery-lond),
To winne him worshippe, and her grace to have,
Which of all earthly things he most did crave:
And ever, as he rode, his hart did earne
To prove his puissance in battell brave
Upon his foe, and his new force to learne
Upon his foe, a dragon horrible and stearne.
A lovely ladie rode him faire beside,
Upon a lowly asse more white then snow;
Yet she much whiter; but the same did hide
Under a vele, that wimpled was full low;
And over all a blacke stole shee did throw,
As one that inly mournd; so was she sad,
And heavie sate upon her palfrey slow;
Seeméd in heart some hidden care she had;
And by her in a line a milke-white lambe she lad.
So pure and innocent, as that same lambe,
She was in life and every vertuous lore;
And by descent from royall lynage came
Of ancient kinges and queenes, that had of yore
Their scepters stretcht from east to westerne shore,
And all the world in their subjection held;
Till that infernal feend, with foule uprore,
Forwasted all their land, and them expeld;
Whom to avenge, she had this knight from far compeld. called
Behind her farre away a dwarfe did lag,
That lasie seemd, in being ever last,
Or weariéd with bearing of her bag
Of needments at his backe. Thus as they past,
The day with cloudes was suddeine overcast,
And angry Iove an hideous storme of raine
Did poure into his lemans lap so fast,
That everie wight to shroud it did constrain;
And this faire couple eke to shroud themselves were fain.
Enforst to seeke some covert nigh at hand,
A shadie grove not farr away they spide,
That promist ayde the tempest to withstand;
Whose loftie trees, yclad with sommers pride,
Did spred so broad, that heavens light did hide,
Not perceable with power of any starr ;
And all within were pathes and alleies wide,
With footing worne, and leading inward farr :
Faire harbour that them seems; so in they entred ar.
And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led,
Joying to heare the birdes sweete harmony,
Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred,
Seemed in their song to scorne the cruell sky.
Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy,
The sayling Pine, the Cedar proud and tall,
The vine-propp Elme, the Poplar never dry,
The builder Oake, sole king of forrests all,
The Aspine good for staves, the Cypresse funerall ;
The Laurell, meed of mightie conquerours,
And poets sage; the Firre that weepeth still;
The Willow, worne of forlorne paramours,
The Eugh, obedient to the benders will,
The Birch for shafts, the Sallow for the mill,
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