A History of Elizabethan Literature

Yet this true sense that forgèd lie contains.

"These various forms of dancing Love did frame,
And besides these, a hundred millions more;
And as he did invent, he taught the same:
With goodly gesture, and with comely show,
Now keeping state, now humbly honouring low.
And ever for the persons and the place
He taught most fit, and best according grace."

"Each day of thine, sweet month of May,
Love makes a solemn Holy Day.
I will perform like duty;
Since thou resemblest every way
Astraea, Queen of Beauty.
Both you, fresh beauties do partake,
Either's aspect, doth summer make.
Thoughts of young Love awaking,
Hearts you both do cause to ache;
And yet be pleased with aching.
Right dear art thou, and so is She,
Even like attractive sympathy
Gains unto both, like dearness.
I ween this made antiquity
Name thee, sweet May of majesty,
As being both like in clearness."

The chief direct followers of Spenser were, however, Giles and Phineas Fletcher, and William Browne. The two first were, as has been said, the cousins of John Fletcher the dramatist, and the sons of Dr. Giles Fletcher, the author of Licia. The exact dates and circumstances of their lives are little known. Both were probably born between 1580 and 1590. Giles, though the younger (?), died vicar of Alderton in Suffolk in 1623: Phineas, the elder (?), who was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge (Giles was a member of Trinity College in the same university), also took orders, and was for nearly thirty years incumbent of Hilgay-in-the-Fens, dying in 1650.

Giles's extant work is a poem in four cantos or parts, generally entitled Christ's Victory and Triumph. He chose a curious and rather infelicitous variation on the Spenserian stanza ababbccc, keeping the Alexandrine but missing the seventh line, with a lyrical interlude here and there. The whole treatment is highly allegorical, and the lusciousness of Spenser is imitated and overdone. Nevertheless the versification and imagery are often very beautiful, as samples of the two kinds will show: —

"The garden like a lady fair was cut
That lay as if she slumber'd in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut;
The azure fields of Heav'n were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flow'rs of light:
The flow'rs-de-luce, and the round sparks of dew,
That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars, that sparkle in the evening blue.
"Upon a hilly bank her head she cast,
On which the bower of Vain-delight was built,
White and red roses for her face were placed,
And for her tresses marigolds were spilt:
Them broadly she displayed like flaming gilt,
Till in the ocean the glad day were drowned:
Then up again her yellow locks she wound,
And with green fillets in their pretty cauls them bound.
"What should I here depaint her lily hand,
Her veins of violets, her ermine breast,
Which there in orient colours living stand:
Or how her gown with living leaves is drest,
Or how her watchman, armed with boughy crest,
A wall of prim hid in his bushes bears
Shaking at every wind their leafy spears
While she supinely sleeps, nor to be wakèd fears."

"See, see the flowers that below,
Now as fresh as morning blow,
And of all the virgin rose,
That as bright Aurora shows:
How they all unleavèd die,
Losing their virginity;
Like unto a summer shade,
But now born and now they fade.
Everything doth pass away,
There is danger in delay.
Come, come gather then the rose,
Gather it, or it you lose.
All the sand of Tagus' shore
Into my bosom casts his ore:
All the valleys' swimming corn
To my house is yearly borne:
Every grape of every vine
Is gladly bruis'd to make me wine,
While ten thousand kings, as proud,
To carry up my train have bow'd,
And a world of ladies send me
In my chambers to attend me.
All the stars in Heaven that shine,
And ten thousand more, are mine:
Only bend thy knee to me,
Thy wooing shall thy winning be."

The Purple Island, Phineas Fletcher's chief work, is an allegorical poem of the human body, written in a stanza different only from that of Christ's Victory in being of seven lines only, the quintet of Giles being cut down to a regular elegiac quatrain. This is still far below the Spenserian stanza, and the colour is inferior to that of Giles. Phineas follows Spenser's manner, or rather his mannerisms, very closely indeed, and in detached passages not unsuccessfully, as here, where the transition from Spenser to Milton is marked: —

"The early morn lets out the peeping day,
And strew'd his path with golden marigolds:
The Moon grows wan, and stars fly all away.
Whom Lucifer locks up in wonted folds
Till light is quench'd, and Heaven in seas hath flung
The headlong day: to th' hill the shepherds throng
And Thirsil now began to end his task and song:

"'Who now, alas! shall teach my humble vein,
That never yet durst peep from covert glade,
But softly learnt for fear to sigh and plain
And vent her griefs to silent myrtle's shade?
Who now shall teach to change my oaten quill
For trumpet 'larms, or humble verses fill
With graceful majesty, and lofty rising skill?