spirit and freedom of Dryden's versification is nobly exemplified in his expansion of the elder poet's address to May, where he has converted the two lines of his original into a picture of the most exquisite grace and beauty. I need not crave a pardon for the introduction of such a copy by such an artist: The morning-lark, the messenger of day, And licks the dropping leaves, and dries the dews; For thee, sweet month, the groves green liv'ries wear : If not the first, the fairest of the year: For thee the Graces lead the dancing Hours, So may thy tender blossoms fear no blite, It would appear a difficult and a dangerous task to enter into competition with passages such as I have now given; yet, rich and appropriate as these Chaucerian pictures must be esteemed, they are rivalled, if not surpassed, by the Mornings in Spring of Dunbar. Both the "Golden Terge," and the "Thistle and the Rose," open with the most glowing and delicious representations of the dawning of a vernal day. In the first of these the poet is described as leaving his bed with the morning star, and watching for the rising of the sun, the effects of which on the landscape he has painted with a warmth and fidelity worthy of the pencil of Titian: Right as the starre of day began to shyne, When gone to bed was Vesper and Lucyne, I raise, and by a rosier* did me rest: Upsprang the golden candle matutine, With clear depurit + bemis chrystalline, Gladding the mirry fowlis in their nest, Or Phoebus was in purple cape revest ‡. Upsprang the lark, the heaven's menstrel syne §, In May intill a morrow mirthfullest. * Rose tree. † Purified. Dressed. § Then. VOL. II. Full angel-like' thir birdis sang their hours The pearled drops shook as in silver showers, Which he, for love, all drank up with his heit. For mirth of May, with skippis and with hoppis, With curious notes, as Venus chapel-clarks: Down through the rys ¶ ane river ran with stremis That all the lake as lamp did leme of light, Through the reflex of Phœbus visage bright; The bank was green, the sun was full of bemis, The crystal air, the saphire firmament, The ruby skyies of the red orient, Kest beryl beams on emʼrald bewis green: What through the merry fowlis harmony, Ane sail, as blossom white upon the spray, With swiftest motion through a crystal bay. After a vision of considerable length, and incomparably rich in allegorical imagery, the poet is thus awakened from his slumber : And as I did awake of this swowning ||, The joyful fowlis merrily did sing. For mirth of Phoebus tender bemis schene : * Cast. + Garden. Gules, the heraldic term for red. § The rock resplendent from the reflection of the river, illuminated, as with low or flame, all the bright leaves. || Dream. Sweet was the vapours, soft the morrowing, In white and red was all the earth besene, If we now turn to the initiatory stanzas of the Thistle and the Rose, in which the bard fancies himself addressed in a dream by May, who urges him to write something in her honour, and to welcome the return of Spring, we shall find a picture of not less consummate elegance and beauty, and perhaps of still greater animation: When March was with varying windis past, And April had with her silver showers And lusty May, that mother is of flowers, In bed at morrow sleeping as I lay, And halsit me with visage pale and green; * Orisons. + Hailed. With good will. |