BORN about 1553; DIED 1598.
THIS delightful poet, although he seems never to have written without a moral purpose, has, in his principal work, notwithstanding its elaborate allegory, too often concealed the point of his lesson,-within such a rich profusion of poetic flowers, indeed, as could have been the produce only of an unrivalled fancy, enlivened by feelings at once tender and ardent. In the following pieces, however, the genius of the author of the "Faery Queene,” is chastened to a degree of sobriety, consistent with the elevated and spiritual nature of the subjects treated.
AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY LOVE.
LOVE, lift me upon thy golden wings
From this base world unto thy heaven's hight,
Where I may see those admirable things,
Which there thou workest by thy soveraine might,
Farre above feeble reach of earthly sight,
That I thereof an heavenly hymne may sing
Unto the God of love, high heaven's King.
Many lewd layes (ah! woe is me the more!)
In praise of that mad fit which fools call love,
I have in the heat of youth made heretofore,
That in light wits did loose affection move;
But all those follies now I do reprove,
And turned have the tenor of my string
The heavenly praises of true love to sing.
And ye, that wont with greedy, vain desire
To read my fault, and, wondering at my flame,
To warm yourselves at my wide sparkling fire,
Sith' now that heat is quenched, quench my blame,
And in her ashes shroud my dying shame;
For who my passed follies now pursues,
Begins his own, and my old fault renews.
Before this world's great frame, in which all things Are now contain'd, found any being place,
Ere flitting Time could wag his eyas' wings
About that mightie bound which doth embrace The rolling spheres, and parts their houres by space,
That high Eternall Powre, which now doth move In all these things, mov'd in itselfe by love.
It lov'd itselfe, because itselfe was faire;
(For fair is lov'd;) and of itself begot
Like to itselfe his eldest sonne and heire,
Eternall, pure, and voide of sinfull blot,
The firstling of his joy, in whom no jot
Of love's dislike or pride was to be found,
Whom he therefore with equal honour crown'd.
With him he raign'd before all time prescribed,
In endlesse glorie and immortall might,
Together with that third from them derived,
Most wise, most holy, most almightie Spright!
Whose kingdom's throne no thoughts of earthly
Can comprehend, much lesse my trembling verse With equall words can hope it to reherse.
Yet, O most blessed Spirit! pure lamp of light,
Eternal spring of grace and wisdom true,
Vouchsafe to shed into my barren spright
Some little drop of thy celestial dew,
That may my rimes with sweet infuse embrew,
And give me words equal unto my thought,
To tell the marveils by thy mercy wrought.
1 Young, newly fledged. An eyas is a young hawk, not yet fit for flight.
Yet being pregnant still with powrefull grace,
And full of fruitfull love, that loves to get
Things like himselfe, and to enlarge his race,
His second brood, though not of powre so great,
Yet full of beautie, next he did beget,
An infinite increase of angels bright,
All glistring glorious in their Maker's light.
To them the heaven's illimitable hight,
(Not this round heaven, which we from hence behold,
Adorn'd with thousand lamps of burning light,
And with ten thousand gemmes of shyning gold,)
He gave as their inheritance to hold,
That they might serve him in eternal bliss,
And be partakers of those joyes of his.
There they in their trinall triplicities
About him wait, and on his will depend,
Either with nimble wings to cut the skies,
When he them on his messages doth send,
Or on his owne dread presence to attend,
Where they behold the glorie of his light,
And caroll hymnes of love both day and night.
Both day and night is unto them all one;
For he his beames doth unto them extend,
That darknesse there appeareth never none;
Ne hath their day, ne hath their blisse, an end,
But there their termelesse time in pleasure spend ;
Ne ever should their happinesse decay,
Had not they dared the Lord to disobay.
But pride, impatient of long resting peace,
Did puffe them up with greedy bold ambition,
|