Than whom, I am persuaded, there was none,
Since the blind Bard, his Iliads up did make,
Fitter a task like that, to undertake;
To set down boldly! bravely to invent!
In all high knowledge, surely, excellent!
-MICHAEL DRAYTON
AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREATEST ENGLISH
Old Spenser, next, warm'd with poetic rage,
In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age;
An age that yet uncultivate and rude,
Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursu'd
Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods.
But now the mystic tale, that pleas'd of yore,
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.
We view well-pleas'd at distance all the sights
Of arms and palfries, battles, fields, and fights,
And damsels in distress, and courteous knights.
But when we look too near, the shades decay,
And all the pleasing landscape fades away.
Sage Spenser waked his lofty lay
To grace Eliza's golden sway:
O'er the proud theme new lustre to diffuse,
He chose the gorgeous allegoric muse,
And call'd to life old Uther's elfin tale,
And rov'd thro' many a necromantic vale,
Portraying chiefs that knew to tame
The goblin's ire, the dragon's flame,
To pierce the dark enchanted hall,
Where virtue sate in lonely thrall.
From fabling Fancy's inmost store
A rich romantic robe he bore;
A veil with visionary trappings hung,
And o'er his virgin-queen the fairy texture flung.
-THOMAS WARTON
Chosen by the Muses for their Page of State-
Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven
With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace,
I called him Brother, Englishman, and Friend!
-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
But then my Master dear arose to mind,
He on whose song while yet I was a boy,
My spirit fed, attracted to its kind,
And still insatiate of the growing joy;
He on whose tomb these eyes were wont to dwell,
With inward yearnings which I may not tell;
He whose green bays shall bloom forever young,
And whose dear name whenever I repeat,
Reverence and love are trembling on my tongue;
Sweet Spenser, sweetest Bard; yet not more sweet
Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise,
High Priest of all the Muses' mysteries.
Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,
Did, last eve, ask my promise to refine
Some English, that might strive thine ear to please.
But, Elfin-poet! 'tis impossible
For an inhabitant of wintry earth
To rise, like Phoebus, with a golden quill,
Fire-wing'd, and make a morning in his mirth.
It is impossible to 'scape from toil
O' the sudden, and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the soil
Before it can put forth its blossoming:
Be with me in the summer days, and I
Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.
-JOHN KEATS
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