..
And ye three handmaids of the Cyprian Queen,
The which do still adorn her beauty's pride,
Help to adorn my beautifulest bride.
* * * * *
"Crown ye god Bacchus with a coronal,
And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine,
And let the Graces dance unto the rest,--
For they can do it best.
The whiles the maidens do their carols sing,
To which the woods shall answer and their echo ring."
The whole Epithalamion is very noble, with an organ-like roll and majesty
of numbers, while it is instinct with the same joyousness which must have
been the familiar mood of Spenser. It is no superficial and tiresome
merriment, but a profound delight in the beauty of the universe and in
that delicately surfaced nature of his which was its mirror and
counterpart. Sadness was alien to him, and at funerals he was, to be
sure, a decorous mourner, as could not fail with so sympathetic a
temperament; but his condolences are graduated to the unimpassioned scale
of social requirement. Even for Sir Philip Sidney his sighs are regulated
by the official standard. It was in an unreal world that his affections
found their true object and vent, and it is in an elegy of a lady whom he
had never known that he puts into the mouth of a husband whom he has
evaporated into a shepherd, the two most naturally pathetic verses he
ever penned:--
"I hate the day because it lendeth light
To see all things, but not my love to see.
Pages:
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259