EDMOND SPENSER POEMS, AMORETTI

SPENSER POEMS, AMORETTI

SPENSER, EDMUND (1552?-1599). —Poet, was b. in East Smithfield, London, the s. of John S., described as gentleman and journeyman in the art of cloth-making, who had come to London from Lancashire. In 1561 the poet was sent to Merchant Taylor's School, then newly opened, and in 1569 he proceeded to Pembroke Hall, Camb., as a sizar, taking his degree in 1576. Among his friends there were Edward Kirke, who ed. the Shepheard's Calendar, and Gabriel Harvey, the critic. While still at school he had contributed 14 sonnet-visions to Van de Noot's Theatre for Worldlings (1569). On leaving the Univ. S. went to the north, probably to visit his relations in Lancashire, and in 1578, through his friend Harvey, he became known to Leicester and his brother-in-law, Philip Sidney. The next year, 1579, saw the publication of The Shepheard's Calendar in 12 eclogues. It was dedicated to Sidney, who had become his friend and patron, and was received with acclamation, all who had ears for poetry perceiving that a new and great singer had arisen. The following year S. was appointed sec. to Lord Grey of Wilton, Deputy for Ireland, a strict Puritan, and accompanied him to Ireland. At the same time he appears to have begun the Faerie Queen. In 1581 he was appointed Registrar of Chancery, and received a grant of the Abbey and Castle of Enniscorthy, which was followed in 1586 by a grant of the Castle of Kilcolman in County Cork, a former possession of the Earls of Desmond with 3000 acres attached. Simultaneously, however, a heavy blow fell upon him in the death of Sidney at the Battle of Zutphen. The loss of this dear friend he commemorated in his lament of Astrophel. In 1590 he was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, who persuaded him to come to England, and presented him to the Queen, from whom he received a pension of £50, which does not, however, appear to have been regularly paid, and on the whole his experiences of the Court did not yield him much satisfaction. In the same year his reputation as a poet was vastly augmented by the publication of the first three books of the Faerie Queen, dedicated to Elizabeth. The enthusiasm with which they were received led the publisher to bring out a collection of other writings of S. under the general title of Complaints, and including Mother Hubbard's Tale (a satire on the Court and on the conflict then being waged between the old faith and the new), Teares of the Muses, and The Ruins of Time. Having seen these ventures launched, S. returned to Kilcolman and wrote Colin Clout's come Home Again, one of the brightest and most vigorous of his poems, not, however, pub. until 1595. In the following year appeared his Four Hymns, two on Love and Beauty and two on Heavenly Love and Beauty, and the Prothalamion on the marriage of two daughters of the Earl of Worcester. He also pub. in prose his View of Ireland, a work full of shrewd observation and practical statesmanship. In 1594 he was m. to Elizabeth Boyle, whom he had courted in Amoretti, and his union with whom he now celebrated in the magnificent Epithalamion, by many regarded as his most perfect poem. In 1595 he returned to England, taking with him the second part of the Faerie Queen, pub. in 1596. In 1598 he was made Sheriff of Cork, and in the same year his fortunes suffered a final eclipse. The rebellion of Tyrone broke out, his castle was burned, and in the conflagration his youngest child, an infant, perished, he himself with his wife and remaining children escaping with difficulty. He joined the President, Sir T. Norris, who sent him with despatches to London, where he suddenly d. on January 16, 1599, as was long believed in extreme destitution. This, however, happily appears to be at least doubtful. He was buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer, and a monument was erected to his memory in 1620 by the Countess of Dorset.

The position of S. in English poetry is below Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton only. The first far excels him in narrative and constructive power and in humour, and the last in austere grandeur of conception; but for richness and beauty of imagination and exquisite sweetness of music he is unsurpassed except by Shakespeare. He has been called the poets' poet, a title which he well merits, not only by virtue of the homage which all the more imaginative poets have yielded him, but because of the almost unequalled influence he has exercised upon the whole subsequent course and expression of English poetry, which he enriched with the stanza which bears his name, and which none since him have used with more perfect mastery. His faults are prolixity, indirectness, and want of constructive power, and consequently the sustained sweetness and sumptuousness of his verse are apt to cloy. His great work, the Faerie Queen, is but a gorgeous fragment, six books out of a projected twelve; but probably few or none of its readers have regretted its incompleteness. In it Protestantism and Puritanism receive their most poetic and imaginative presentation and vindication.

SUMMARY.— B. 1552, ed. Merchant Taylor's School and Camb., became known to Leicester and Sir P. Sidney 1578, pub. Shepheard's Calendar 1579, appointed sec. to Lord Deputy of Ireland 1580, and began Faerie Queen, receives various appointments and grants 1581-6, pub. Astrophel in memory of Sidney 1586, visited by Raleigh and by him presented to Queen Elizabeth, who pensioned him 1590, and in same year pub. first three books of Faerie Queen, Teares of Muses, etc., writes Colin Clout, pub. 1595, and in 1596 pub. Four Hymns and Prothalamion, m. E. Boyle 1594, whom he had courted in Amoretti, and now celebrated in the Epithalamion, returned to England 1595, Sheriff of Cork 1598, in which year the rebellion broke out and ruined his fortunes, returned to London and d. 1599.

There have been very numerous ed. of the works, among which may be mentioned the Globe (1899), and Dr. Grosart's (10 vols., 1882-84). There is an excellent biography by Dean Church (1879).

SPENSER POEMS, AMORETTI

Sonnet 26

Edmond Spenser

Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a briar;

Sweet is the jupiter, but sharp his bough;

Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh near;

Sweet is the fir-bloom, but his branch is rough;

Sweet is the cypress, but his rind is tough;

Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;

Sweet is the broom-flower, but yet sour enough

And sweet is moly, but his root is ill.

So every sweet with sour is tempered still,

That maketh it be coveted the more:

For easy things, that may be got at will,

Most sorts of men do set but little store.

Why then should I account of little pain

That endless pleasure shall unto me gain!

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:

How comes it then that this her cold so great

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,

But harder grows the more I her entreat?

Or how comes it that my exceeding heat

Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,

And feel my flames augmented manifold?

What more miraculous thing may be told,

That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,

And ice, which is congealed with senseless cold,

Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

Such is the power of love in gentle mind,

That it can alter all the course of kind.

Sonet 37

Edmond Spenser

What guile is this, that those her golden tresses

She doth attire under a net of gold;

And with sly skill so cunningly them dresses,

That which is gold, or hair, may scarce be told?

Is it that men's frail eyes, which gaze too bold,

She may entangle in that golden snare;

And, being caught, may craftily enfold

Their weaker hearts, which are not well aware?

Take heed, therefore, mine eyes, how ye do stare

Hence forth too rashly on that guileful net,

In which, if ever ye entrappèd are,

Out of her hands ye by no means shall get.

Fondness it were ye by any, being free,

To covet fetters, though they golden be!

Sonnet 75

Edmond Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide and made my pains his prey

"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay

A mortal thing so to immortalize,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wipèd out likewise."

"Not so," quoth I, "let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live in fame;

My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew."