So, in his sonnet beginning:

Since Nature's works be good, and death doth serve
As Nature's work, why should we fear to die?

So, the expressive lines of Barnes :

Ah, sweet Content, where is thy mild abode ?
Is it with shepherds and light-hearted swains
Which sing upon the downs and pipe abroad,
Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains?

So, Bishop Donne's devout and penitent strains :
As due by many titles I resign

Myself to thee, O God, first, I was made
By thee and for thee-

Drummond's sonnets, entitled "Human Frailty," "The Book of the World," "Content and Resolute," and "The Praise of a Solitary Life," are all of exquisite literary finish and high moral purpose. It is in the last of these that he sings:

Thrice happy he who by some shady grove,

Far from the clamorous world doth live his own;
Though solitary, who is not alone,

But doth converse with that Eternal Love.

William Browne, one of the sweetest of the older English lyrists, opens one of his poems in well-nigh faultless form:

Down in a valley by a forest side,

Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves.

His remarkable sonnet on "Sin" is worthy of a poet-theologian of the days of Knox and the Reformers, as it begins:

Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round.

But continued reference is useless in this wide wealth of lyric meditation-"a treasury of English sonnets," indeed, as they have been called, and a treasury, moreover, whose key every English student has in hand so that he may open the door and enter at his will.

If we pass beyond the limits of the golden age in our study of meditative lyrics, the field is simply boundless, and we are at a loss what to choose among these "infinite riches." Of English poets classed as secondary the list is large of those who have written such lyrics that will live as long as the plays of Shakespeare. Such are Thomson, Goldsmith, Cowper, Crabbe, Hood, Gray, Moore, Coleridge, and others, each of whom has made valid contributions to this order of verse. We have not to go outside of such poems as "The Seasons," ""The Deserted Village," "The Bridge of Sighs," and "Retirement" for apt examples of reflective verse, while yet possessed of a due degree of genuine poetic emotion.

In the three great eras of the English lyric-the Elizabethan, Georgian, and Victorian-one has but to confine himself to a few great names to see something of the extent and value of this poetic product. In those hours in the experience of each of us, when the head and heart are weary, and we are needing, most of all, rest and solace and strengthening of spirit, there is nothing this side of the inspired word of God so refreshing as these tender musings of our best English bards.

So, in his sonnet beginning:

Since Nature's works be good, and death doth serve
As Nature's work, why should we fear to die?

So, the expressive lines of Barnes :

Ah, sweet Content, where is thy mild abode?
Is it with shepherds and light-hearted swains
Which sing upon the downs and pipe abroad,
Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains?

So, Bishop Donne's devout and penitent strains:
As due by many titles I resign

Myself to thee, O God, first, I was made
By thee and for thee-

Drummond's sonnets, entitled "Human Frailty," "The Book of the World," "Content and Resolute," and "The Praise of a Solitary Life," are all of exquisite literary finish and high moral purpose. It is in the last of these that he sings:

Thrice happy he who by some shady grove,

Far from the clamorous world doth live his own;
Though solitary, who is not alone,

But doth converse with that Eternal Love.

William Browne, one of the sweetest of the older English lyrists, opens one of his poems in well-nigh faultless form :

Down in a valley by a forest side,

Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves.

His remarkable sonnet on "Sin" is worthy of a poet-theologian of the days of Knox and the Reformers, as it begins:

Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round.

But continued reference is useless in this wide wealth of lyric meditation-"a treasury of English sonnets," indeed, as they have been called, and a treasury, moreover, whose key every English student has in hand so that he may open the door and enter at his will.

If we pass beyond the limits of the golden age in our study of meditative lyrics, the field is simply boundless, and we are at a loss what to choose among these "infinite riches." Of English poets classed as secondary the list is large of those who have written such lyrics that will live as long as the plays of Shakespeare. Such are Thomson, Goldsmith, Cowper, Crabbe, Hood, Gray, Moore, Coleridge, and others, each of whom has made valid contributions to this order of verse. We have not to go outside of such poems as "The Seasons," "The Deserted Village," "The Bridge of Sighs," and "Retirement" for apt examples of reflective verse, while yet possessed of a due degree of genuine poetic emotion.

In the three great eras of the English lyric-the Elizabethan, Georgian, and Victorian-one has but to confine himself to a few great names to see something of the extent and value of this poetic product. In those hours in the experience of each of us, when the head and heart are weary, and we are needing, most of all, rest and solace and strengthening of spirit, there is nothing this side of the inspired word of God so refreshing as these tender musings of our best English bards.

IN

CHAPTER II

The Lyrics of Edmund Spenser

66

'N the examination of the poetry of Spenser as an English meditative lyrist, it will be best to follow the natural order of his poems, beginning with the "Faerie Queene." Though it is an epical romance, it has specific lyric elements on the meditative side. Thus Spenser writes to Raleigh "that the general end of all the book is to fashion a gentleman in virtuous discipline," the twelve contemplated books, "fashioning twelve moral virtues." The poem as a unit is an allegory of the human soul.” Many of the characters are thus symbolic of spiritual life, its hopes and fears, its struggles and successes, and would not be out of place in such a treatise as Bunyan's Holy War. Such are the Red Cross Knight, Una, Duessa and the Dragon. So are the typical scenes, localities, and incidents largely representative of religious life and teaching. The poem, indeed, may be said to have been written in the light of the English Reformation, then under way, and thus became in reality, as it was in purpose, one of the great inspiring agencies to further the cause of English Protestantism against the heresy and tyranny of the papacy. From first to last it is a serious poem, written with high ethical intent. So numerous, therefore, are these lyric lines