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Her face so fair as flesh it seemed not,
But heavenly portrait of bright angels' hue,
Clear as the sky withouten blame or blot,
Though goodly mixture of complexions due;
And in her cheeks the vermeil red did shew
Like roses in a bed of lilies shed,

The which ambrosial odors from them threw,
And gazers sense with double pleasure feed,
Able to heal the sick and to revive the dead.

Her ivory forehead, full of beauty brave,
Like a broad table did itself dispread,
For love his lofty triumphs to engrave,
And write the battles of his great godhead;
All good and honor might therein be read;
For there their dwelling was. And when she spake
Sweet words like dropping honey, she did shed,
And 'twixt the pearls and rubies softly brake
A silver sound, that heavenly music seemed to make,

Under her eyelids many Graces sate,
Under the shadow of her even brows,
Working belgards, and amorous retreat.
And every one her with a grace endows
And every one with meekness to her bows,
So glorious mirror of celestial grace,
And sovereign monument of mortal vows,
How shall frail pen describe her heavenly face,
For fear through want of skill, her beauty to disgrace?

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FLORIMEL.

She is a beautiful vision; her name is composed of two words, meaning honey and flowers, emblematic of the sweet and delicate elements of which her na

ture is formed; Shrinking alike from friend and foe, she displays the delicacy, the sensitiveness, and the timidity of woman,

All suddenly out of the thickest brush,
Upon a milk-white palfrey all alone,
A goodly lady did fast by them rush,
Whose face did seem as clear as crystal stone,
And eke, through fear, as white as whale's bone:
Her garments all were wrought of beaten gold,
And all her steed with tinsel trappings shone,
Which fled so fast that nothing might him hold,
And scarce them leisure gave her passing to behold.

Still as she fled, her eye she backward threw,
As fearing evil that pursued her fast;
And her fair yellow locks behind her flew,
Loosely dispers'd with puff of every blast:
All as a blazing star doth far outcast,
His hairy beams, and flaming locks dispread,
At sight whereof the people stand aghast ;
But the sage wizard tells, as he has read,
That it importunes death and doleful dreryhed. ]

PASTORELLA AND CALIDORE.

Pastorella is a perfect form of female excellence and loveliness: "she is full of a fresh, woodland beauty, and painted with a pencil dipped in morning dew."

-He them beside

Saw a fair damsel, which did wear a crown,

Of sundry flowers with silken ribbons tied,

All clad in home-made green that her own hands had dyed.

Upon a little hillock she was placed,

Higher than all the rest, and round about

Environ'd with a garland, goodly graced,
Of lovely lasses; and them all without
The lusty shepherd swains sate in a rout,
The which did pipe and sing her praises due,
And oft rejoice, and oft for wonder shout,
As if some miracle of heavenly hue,

Were down to them descended in that earthly view.

And soothly sure she was full fair of face,
And perfectly well shaped in every limb,
Which she did more augment with modest grace,
And comely carriage of her count'nance trim,
That all the rest like lesser lamps did dim:
Who her admiring as some heavenly wight,
Did for their sovereign goddess her esteem,
And caroling her name both day and night,
The fairest Pastorella her by name did dight.

CHARISSA;

OR CHARITY.

Character, spiritual Love; Painter for it, Raphael.

She was a woman in her freshest age,

Of wondrous beauty and of bounty rare,
With goodly grace and comely personage,
That was on earth not easy to compare;
Full of great love; but Cupid's wanton snare
As hell she hated, chaste in work and will;

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And on her head she wore a tire of gold,
Adorned with gems and owches wondrous fair,
Whose passing price uneath was to be told;
And by her side there sate a gentle pair
Of turtle doves, she sitting in an ivory chair.

HUNT.

FANCY.

Nothing we think can illustrate more fully the creating and moulding power of the imagination than thus to give form and substance to the abstract powers of the mind:

The while a most delicious harmony:

In full strange notes was sweetly heard to sound,
That the rare sweetness of the melody

The feeble senses wholly did confound,

And the frail soul in deep delight nigh drowned;
And when it ceas'd, shrill trumpets loud did bray,
That their report did far away rebound,

And when they ceas'd it 'gan again to play,

The while the maskers marched forth in trim away.

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The first was Fancy like a lovely boy
Of rare aspect, and beauty without peer:

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His garments neither was of silk nor say,
But painted plumes in goodly order dight,
Like as the sun-burnt Indians do array
Their tawny bodies, in their proudest plight;
And those same plumes, so seemed he vain and light,
That by his gait might easily appear;

For still he far'd as dancing in delight,

And in his hand a windy fan did bear,

That in the idle air he mov'd still here and there.

The playfulness of fancy is beautifully drawn in a

single line :

Still he far'd as dancing in delight.

And in his hand a windy fan did bear,

That in the idle air he mov'd still here and there.

HOPE.

The incarnation of hope is still more beautiful and exquisite if possible: here are life, sweetness and delicacy.

With him went Hope in rank, a handsome maid

Of cheerful look and lovely to behold:

In silken samite she was light array'd,

And her fair locks were woven up in gold.
She always smiled: and in her hand did hold
An holy-water sprinkle dipp'd in dew,
With which she sprinkled favors manifold,
On whom she list and did great liking shew,
Great liking unto many, but true love to few.

She always smiled.

In these three words is comprised the whole of Goldsmith's stanza, itself full of beauty:

Hope, like the glimmering taper's light,

Adorns and cheers the way

And still as darker grows the night

Emits a brighter ray.

Spenser can paint to the ear, so to speak, as well as to the eye. The sounds that lull the sleeper in the house of Morpheus are such as are found nowhere else:

And more to lull him in his slumbers soft,

A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down,

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