Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845

– that gretly had not usid be,
For it forgrowin was with gras and wede,"

– which beguiles the foot of the vision-favoured away from the usual beat of men, leading her into the unvisited sequestration due to the haunting of an embodied Allegory – might, in its old simplicity, pass for well invented by whichsoever Priest of Imagination in our day can the best read, in the Sensible, the symbolized Spiritual and Invisible.

You wonder withal, if Chaucer was the poet, how the spectator was turned into a spectatress; and you are somewhat concerned at finding an unwilling word of the judicious Tyrwhitt's, which owns to a doubt on the authorship of the most beautiful minor poem, admitted into the volume of Chaucer.

Dryden felt the effusion of beauty, and has rendered and enhanced it. One may question the fitness of a material alteration which he has ventured upon. The allegory of the old Poem is pure. Dryden has changed the Knights and Ladies, collectively, into Fairies; for any thing that appears, indeed, of good human stature. The thought came to him apparently as making the beauty more beautiful, and possibly as obtaining, to an otherwise indefinite sort of imaginary beings, a known character and a recognized hold upon poetical – succeeding to popular – belief. A contradiction is – that the company of the Leaf have, in emphatic and chosen terms, been described as INNUMERABLE. The laurel is of such enormous diffusion, that A HUNDRED persons might repose under it. Yet IT SHELTERS THEM ALL FROM THE STORM.

It is also singular to us, that the Margarete or Daisy should suffer any slight from Chaucer, seeing the reverence with which he elsewhere regards it. It is here, too, no doubt raised into reverence by the observance of the Flower party; but then it suffers disparagement inasmuch as they are disparaged.

Truly does the amiable Godwin say – "In a word, the Poem of Dryden, regarded merely as the exhibition of a soothing and delicious luxuriance of fancy, may be classed with the most successful productions of human genius. No man can read it without astonishment, perhaps not without envy, at the cheerful, well-harmonized, and vigorous state of mind in which the author must have been at the time he wrote it."

"Now turning from the wintry signs, the sun
His course exalted through the Ram had run
And whirling up the skies, his chariot drove
Through Taurus, and the lightsome realms of love,
Where Venus from her orb descends in showers
To glad the ground, and paint the fields with flowers;
When first the tender blades of grass appear,
And buds, that yet the blast of Eurus fear,
Stand at the door of life, and doubt to clothe the year;
Till gentle heat, and soft repeated rains,
Make the green blood to dance within their veins:
Then, at their call, embolden'd, out they come
And swell the gems, and burst the narrow room;
Broader and broader yet their blooms display,
Salute the welcome sun, and entertain the day.
Then from their breathing souls the sweets repair
To scent the skies, and purge the unwholesome air.
Joy spreads the heart, and with a general song,
Spring issues out, and leads the jolly months along.
"In that sweet season, as in bed I lay,
And sought in sleep to pass the night away,
I turn'd my weary side, but still in vain,
Though full of youthful health, and void of pain.
Cares I had none to keep me from my rest,
For love had never enter'd in my breast;
I wanted nothing fortune could supply,
Nor did she slumber till that hour deny.
I wonder'd then, but after found it true,
Much joy had dried away the balmy dew:
Seas would be pools, without the brushing air
To curl the waves, and sure some little care
Should weary nature so, to make her want repair.
"When Chanticleer the second watch had sung,
Scorning the scorner sleep, from bed I sprung;
And dressing by the moon, in loose array,
Pass'd out in open air, preventing day,
And sought a goodly grove, as fancy led my way.
Straight as a line in beauteous order stood
Of oaks unshorn, a venerable wood;
Fresh was the grass beneath, and every tree,
At distance planted in a due degree,
Their branching arms in air with equal space
Stretch'd to their neighbours with a long embrace;
And the new leaves on every bough were seen,
Some ruddy-colour'd, some of lighter green.
The painted birds, companions of the spring,
Hopping from spray to spray, were heard to sing.
Both eyes and ears received a like delight,
Enchanting music, and a charming sight.
On Philomel I fix'd my whole desire,
And listen'd for the queen of all the quire;
Fain would I hear her heavenly voice to sing,
And wanted yet an omen to the spring.
"Attending long in vain, I took the way,
Which through a path, but scarcely printed, lay;
In narrow mazes oft it seem'd to meet,
And look'd as lightly press'd by fairy feet.
Wand'ring I walk'd alone, for still methought
To some strange end so strange a path was wrought;
At last it led me where an arbour stood,
The sacred receptacle of the wood;
This place unmark'd, though oft I walk'd the green,
In all my progress I had never seen;
And seized at once with wonder and delight,
Gazed all around me, new to the transporting sight.
'Twas bench'd with turf, and goodly to be seen,
The thick young grass arose in fresher green:
The mound was newly made, no sight could pass
Betwixt the nice partitions of the grass;
The well-united sods so closely lay,
And all around the shades defended it from day;
For sycamores with eglantine were spread,
A hedge about the sides, a covering over head.
And so the fragrant briar was wove between,
The sycamore and flowers were mix'd with green,
That nature seem'd to vary the delight,
And satisfied at once the smell and sight.
The master workman of the bower was known
Through fairylands, and built for Oberon;
Who twining leaves with such proportion drew,
They rose by measure, and by rule they grew;
No mortal tongue can half the beauty tell,
For none but hands divine could work so well.
Both roof and sides were like a parlour made,
A soft recess, and a cool summer shade.
The hedge was set so thick, no foreign eye
The persons placed within it could espy;