"Her angel's face, As the great eye of heaven shined bright Did never mortall eye, beholde such heavenly grace?" He uses a fine metaphor to depict fear: "And troubled blood, through his pale face was seen, To come and goe with tidings from the heart, His description of repose is also beautiful: "Sleepe after toyle, port after stormy seas, Ease after pain, death after life, doth greatly please." Spenser sometimes describes a landscape which might adorn Paradise itself: "It was a chosen spot of fertile land, No dainty flowre or herb that growes on ground; No song, but did contain a lovely ditt, Trees, branches, birds and songs, were framed fitt For to allure fraile mind to careless ease." Two stanzas on the ministry of angels are too beautiful to be omitted: "And is there care in heaven? And is there love In heavenly spirits to these creatures bace, That may compassion of their evils move? And all his workes with mercy doth embrace, "How oft do they their silver bowers leave O, why should Hevenly God to men have such regard! Spenser was not merely a great poet, but a Christian philosopher, who never omitted, in glowing picture or fanciful allegory, the lessons of morality and holy living which, like the hidden meaning in our Saviour's parables, pervade and glorify the whole. "Great injustice is done to Spenser, when, bewildered with the mazes of his inexhaustible creation, or by the brightness of his exuberant fancy, we see in the 'Faerie Queene' nothing more than a wondrous fairy tale, or a gorgeous pageant of chivalry. Beyond all this, far within it, is an inner life, and that is breathed into it from the Bible. It is the great sacred poem of English literature." "I dare be known to think," said Milton (addressing the Parliament of England), “ our sage and serious Spenser a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas." John Wesley, in giving directions for the clerical studies of his Methodist disciples, advised them to combine with the study of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Testament the reading of the "Faerie Queene." And Keble, the poet of the "Christian Year," described this poem as "a continued, deliberate endeavor to enlist the restless intellect and chivalrous feeling of an inquiring and romantic age on the side of goodness and faith, of purity and justice." It is written in a peculiar versification, which Spenser first used, and which has since been styled the "Spenserian stanza." He added a ninth line to the "ottava rima,” or eight-lined Italian stanza, a measure full of music and rhythm, in that flowing language, but very difficult to write with pleasant effect in English. But Spenser has wielded this complicated instrument with such consummate mastery and grace, that the rich, abundant melody almost oppresses the ear with its overwhelming sweetness. Like the soft undulation of a tropic sea, it bears us onward dreamily, with easy swell and falls, by wizard islands of sunshine and of rest, by bright phantom-peopled realms, and old enchanted cities. We will now return to his private life. He married at about the same period of life as Chaucer-forty-one or two. His wife was the fair "Elizabeth" to whom he addressed one hundred sonnets, rather too artificial to be pleasing, and for whom his most melodious notes were sung in his "Epithalamion," "the sweetest marriage-song our language boasts." Let me give you her picture: "Loe! where she comes along with portly pace, Like Phoebe, from her chamber of the East, Arysing forth to run her mighty race, Clad all in white that seems a virgin best, So well it her beseemes, that you might weene Some angell she had beene. Her long loose yellow locks, like golden wyre, Doe like a golden mantle her attyre, And being crowned with a garland greene, Seeme like some mayden queene. Her modest eyes abashed to behold So many gazers as on her do stare Upon the lowly ground affixed are. Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold, Nathless doe ye still loud her prayses sing, That all the woods may answer, and your echo sing. Behold, whiles she before the altar stands, And the pure snows, with goodly vermeill staine Like crimson dyde in grayne; That even the angels, which continually About the sacred altar doe remaine, Forget their service, and about her fly, Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fayre But her sad eyes still fastened on the ground, That suffers not one look to glaunce awry, Which may let in a little thought unsound. Why blush ye, Love, to give to me your hand? The pledge of all our band Sing ye sweet angels, Alleluya sing! That all the woods may answer and your echo ring!" The next few years were full of happiness, in his Irish castle, now made bright by the love of wife and children. It was a beautiful home by the shaded banks of the river Mulla. "Soft woodland and savage hill, shadowy riverglade and rolling plough-land, were all there to gladden the poet's heart with their changeful beauty, and tinge his verse with their glowing colors." But alas! how soon the dark clouds of sorrow and death swept over this lovely scene! In 1598 he was driven from his home by the Irish rebellion, and, his castle being burned by the mob, one of his children perished in the flames. Crushed by grief and poverty, he died soon after in London at the early age of forty-five, on the 16th of January, 1599. He was buried by the side of Chaucer, with great pomp, in Westminster Abbey. His pall was borne by poets, and mournful elegies, with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his grave. a Lowell says, "The rare nature of Spenser was, like Venice glass, meant only to mantle with the wine of sunniest poesy. The first drop of poisonous sorrow shattered him." In character he was gentle, sensitive, affectionate, and good as well as great, one of the few whose life needs no apology. "More sweet than odors caught by him who sails, Near spicy shores of Araby the blest, A thousand times more exquisitely sweet |