For oh, Greensleeves was all my joy!
And oh, Greensleeves was my delight!
And oh, Greensleeves was my heart of gold!
And who but my lady Greensleeves ?

I bought thee petticoats of the best,
The cloth as fine as might be;
I gave thee jewels for thy chest
And all this cost I spent on thee,
For oh, Greensleeves.

Thy smock of silk, both fair and white,
With gold embroider'd gorgeously,
Thy petticoat of sendalt right:
And these I bought thee gladly,
For oh, Greensleeves.

Greensleeves, now farewell! adieu!
God I pray to prosper thee !
For I am still thy lover true.
Come once again and love me!
For oh, Greensleeves.

Save this anonymous poet, all the rest of the Elizabethans quoted so far were above all else dramatists. But there was one who was "the Poet's Poet," who wrote no drama, Edmund Spenser, the greatest of all non-dramatic Elizabethans. With the exception of the Epithalamion, Spenser's great marriage hymn, his first poem, The Shepheardes Calendar, which was published in 1579, is his most lyrical long poem. Some of its twelve Eclogues have a moral or political meaning beneath the poetry; but others are lyrical in subject, if one may say so, as well as in form. Colin Clout is the recognised leader of the shepherds, but he is hopelessly crossed in love, and has thrown down his pipe in despair. In the fourth Eclogue, Hobbinoll, "his dear friend," sings Colin's lay in praise of Queen Elizabeth, whose portrait Spenser draws thus:

See where she sits upon the grassie greene,

(O seemely sight)

Yclad in Scarlot like a mayden Queene,
And Ermines white.

1 A very rich silk, woven in the Middle Ages. It is sometimes spelt cendal.

Upon her head a Cremosin1 Coronet
With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set:

Bayleaves betweene

And Primroses greene,
Embellish the sweete Violet.

Though someone may tiresomely point out that Damask roses and daffodils do not bloom at the same time, he cannot deny the beauty of these lines. The sixth Eclogue opens with Colin's bitter lamentations over his faithless lady-love. But in high June, Hobbinoll cannot listen patiently to woe: he counsels Colin to let her go her way and himself be merry in the midsummer joy:

TO Colin, here the place, whose pleasant syte

From other shades hath weaned my wandering mynde:
Tell me, what wants me here to work delyte ?
The simple aire, the gentle warbling wynde,
So calm, so cool, as nowhere else I fynde:

The grassie grounde with daintye Daysies dight,
The Bramble Bush, where Byrds of every kinde
To the waters fall their tunes attemper right.

Then if by me thou list advised be
Forsake the soyle that so doth thee bewitch:
Leave me those hilles, where harbrough nis to see, 2
Nor holybush, nor brere, nor winding witche;3
And to the dales resort, where shepheards ritch,
And fruitfull flocks bene every where to see,
Here no night Ravens lodge more black than pitche,
Nor elvish ghosts, nor gastly owles doe flee.

But frendly Faeries, met with many Graces,
And light-fote Nymphs can chase the lingring night,
With Heydegues, and trimly trodden traces,
Whilst systers nyne which dwell on Parnasse hight,
Do make them Musick for their more delight.
And Pan himself, to kisse their christall faces,
Will pype and daunce, where Phæbe shineth bright:
Such pierlesse pleasures have we in these places.

Colin, to hear thy rymes and roundelayes,
Which thou wert wont on wastfull hilles to sing,
I more delight, than larke in Sommer dayes;
Whose Echo made the neighbour groves to ring,
And taught the byrds, which in the lower spring
Did shroud in shady leaves from sunny rayes,
Frame to thy song their cheerful cheriping,

Or hold theyr peace, for shame of thy sweet layes.

I saw Calliope with Muses moe

Soone as thy Oaten pype began to sound,
Their yvorie Luites and Tamburins forgoe.
And from the fountaine, where they sat arounde
Run after hastily thy silver sound.

But when they came, where thou thy skill didst showe,
They drew aback, as halfe with shame confound,
Shepheard to see, them in their art outgoe.

The October Eclogue has three beautiful stanzasSpenser's tribute to the essence and greatness of Poetry. Cuddie, the " pattern poet," has lamented the world's inattention, which has, incidentally, brought him to poverty:

They han the pleasure, I a slender prise.
I beate the bush, the birds to them do flye;-

and complains that the lovelorn Colin is sitting silent:

He were he not with love so ill bedight
Would mount as high and sing as sweet as Swan.

Then Piers, his friend, bursts out into the praise of love, which is the Poet's inspiration:

Ah son, for love does teach him climb so hie,
And lifts him up out of the loathsome mire;
Such immortal mirror, as he doth admire
Would raise his mind above the starrie skie,
And cause a caitiff courage to aspire,
For lofty love doth loath a lowly eye.

Though the Faerie Queene is a narrative poem, it has lyrical stanzas for instance, the first one of Canto IV of Book VI, describing the wounded knight Calepine's condition, he, who, when he was cured of those wounds

cast abroad to wend

To take the air and hear the thrushes songe.

The only verses which can be quoted here are two from the last canto of Book I. Perhaps sound and sense have never been more exquisitely wedded, even by Spenser, than in these, where he describes the Palace after the marriage of Una and the Red Cross Knight:

Then 'gan they sprinckle all the posts with wine,
And made great feast to solemnise that day;
They all perfumde with frankencense divine,
And precious odours fetcht from far away,
That all the house did sweat with great aray:
And all the while sweete Musick did apply
Her curious skill, the warbling notes to play,
To drive away the dull Melancholy;

The whiles one sung a song of love and jollity.

During the which there was an heavenly noise
Heard sound through all the Pallace pleasantly,
Like as it had been many an Angels voice,
Sing, before th' eternall majesty,
In their trinall triplicities on hye;

Yet wist no creature, whence that heavenly sweet
Proceeded, yet each one felt secretly
Himself thereby reft of his sences meet,

And ravished with rare impression in his sprite.

The high-water mark of Spenser's lyrical genius is his marriage song, the Epithalamion; upon his own weddingday he poured out this flood of joy, melody and ecstasy:

So Orpheus did for his owne bride,

So I unto myself alone will sing,

The woods shall to me answer and my Echo ring.

Bringe with you all the Nymphes that you can heare
Both of the rivers and the forrests greene;
And of the sea that neighbours to her neare,

Al with gay girlands goodly wel beseene,
And let them also with them bring in hand,

Another gay girland

For my fayre love of lillyes and of roses,

Bound truelove wize with a blew silk riband.

And let them make great store of bridale poses,
And let them eeke bring store of other flowers
To deck the bridale bowers.

And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread,
For feare the stones her tender foot should wrong,
Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along,

And diapred lyke the discolored mead.

Which done, doe at her chamber door awayt,
For she will waken strayt,

The whiles doe ye this song unto her sing,
The woods shall to you answer and your Echo ring.

Wake now, my love awake; for it is time,

The Rosy Morne long since left Tithones bed,

All ready to her silver coach to clime,

And Phœbus 'gins to shew his glorious hed.

Hark how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr aies,

And caroll of loves praise.

The merry Larke her mattins sings aloft,

The thrush replyes, the Mavis descant playes,
The Ouzell shrills, the Ruddock1 warbles soft,

So goodly all agree with sweet consent,

To this dayes merriment,

Ah my deere love why doe ye sleepe thus long,
When meeter were that you should now awake,
T' awayt the coming of your joyous make, 2
And hearken to the birds lovelearned song,
The dewy leaves among.

For they of joy and pleasaunce to you sing,

That all the woods them answer and their echo ring.

At the end of Spenser's Amoretti, his Love-Sonnets, which seem to be closing in gloom, and immediately before the Epithalamion, his triumph-song of love, he puts this most delightful little poem, which, if less musical than his marriage hymn, has a very charming spice of humour:

Upon a day as Love lay sweetly slumbering,

all in his mothers lap,

A gentle Bee with his loud trumpet murm'ring,
about him flew by hap.