in his rich early manner, has produced in his maturity one noble ode, a poem that stirs all English pulses like a trumpet. Mr. Coventry Patmore has published a volume of odes, full of austere feeling and fine imagination, although, as it appears to me, constructed rather upon a musical than a metrical system. Mr. Swinburne is marked out by his fiery and transcendental temperament to excel in the fuller Dorian numbers. His best choral writing, however, is to be found in his unequalled drama of "Erechtheus," and is therefore placed outside the range of this discussion. But the glowing stanzas addressed to Victor Hugo in exile, are amply sufficient to close with dignity the diapason of English odes, a music like that of which Thompson speaks,

A broad majestic stream, and rolling on
Thro' all the winding harmony of sound.

EDMUND W. Gosse.

SPENSER.

EPITHALAMION.

Written for the poet's own wedding-day, June 11, 1594, and published in a volume, which also contained the "Amoretti," in 1595.

E learned sisters, which have oftentimes

YE

Been to the aiding, others to adorn,

Whom ye thought worthy of your graceful rhymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorn
To hear their names sung in your simple lays,

But joyed in their praise;

And when ye list your own mishaps to mourn,
Which death, or love, or fortune's wreck did raise,
Your string could soon to sadder tenor turn,
And teach the woods and waters to lament
Your doleful dreriment:

Now lay those sorrowful complaints aside;
And having all your heads with girlands crowned,
Help me mine own love's praises to resound;

Ne let the same of any be envide :

So Orpheus did for his own bride,

So I unto my self alone will sing;

The woods shall to me answer, and my echo ring.

B

Early, before the world's light-giving lamp
His golden beam upon the hills doth spread,
Having disperst the night's uncheerful damp,
Do ye awake; and with fresh lustihed
Go to the bower of my beloved love,
My truest turtle-dove:

Bid her awake; for Hymen is awake,

And long since ready forth his mask to move,

With his bright tead that flames with many a flake, And many a bachelor to wait on him,

In their fresh garments trim.

Bid her awake therefore, and soon her dight,

For lo the wished day is come at last,
That shall for all the pains and sorrows past

Pay to her usury of long delight:

And, whilst she doth her dight,

Do ye to her of joy and solace sing,

That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.

Bring with you all the Nymphs that you can hear
Both of the rivers and the forests green,

And of the sea that neighbours to her near;

All with gay girlands goodly well beseen.
And let them also with them bring in hand
Another gay girland,

For my fair love, of lilies and of roses,

Bound truelove-wise, with a blue silk riband.

And let them make great store of bridal posies,
And let them eke bring store of other flowers,
To deck the bridal bowers.

And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread,
For fear the stones her tender foot should wrong,
Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along,
And diapred like the discoloured mead.
Which done, do at her chamber door await,
For she will waken straight,

The whiles do ye this song unto her sing;
The woods shall to you answer, and your echo ring.

Ye Nymphs of Mulla, which with careful heed
The silver scaly trouts do tend full well,

And greedy pikes which use therein to feed ;
(Those trouts and pikes all others do excel ;)
And ye likewise, which keep the rushy lake
Where none do fishes take,

Bind up the locks the which hang scattered light,
And in his waters, which your mirror make,

Behold your faces as the crystal bright,

That when you come whereas my love doth lie,

No blemish she may spy.

And eke, ye lightfoot maids, which keep the door,
That on the hoary mountain use to tower,
And the wild wolves which seek them to devour,

With your steel darts do chase from coming near;