The aureate vanes of his throne soverain
With glittering glance o'erspread the oceane;
The large floodës, lemand all of light,
But with one blink of his supernal sight.
For to behold, it was a glore to see
The stabled windis, and the calmed sea,
The soft season, the firmament serene,
The loune 1 illuminate air and firth amene.
And lusty Flora did her bloomis spread
Under the feet of Phoebus' sulyart2 steed;
The swarded soil embrode with selcouth3 hues,
Wood and forest, obumbrate with bews.4
Towers, turrets, kirnals, and pinnacles high,
Of kirks, castles, and ilk fair city,
Stood painted, every fane, phiol, and stage,7
Upon the plain ground by their own umbrage.
Of Æolus' north blasts having no dreid,
The soil spread her broad bosom on-breid;
The corn crops and the beir new-braird
With gladsome garment revesting the yerd.8
The prai9 besprent with springing sprouts disperse
For caller humours 10 on the dewy night
Rendering some place the gersë-piles" their light;
As far as cattle the lang summer's day
Had in their pasture eat and nip away;
And blissful blossoms in the bloomed yerd,
Submit their heads to the young sun's safeguard.
Ivy-leaves rank o'erspread the barmkin wall;
The bloomed hawthorn clad his pikis all;
Forth of fresh bourgeons 12 the wine grapes ying 13
1 'Loune:' calm.-'Sulyart:' sultry.-3 Selcouth:' uncommon.-Bews.' boughs. Kirnals:' battlements.-6 Phiol:' cupola.- 'Stage:' storey.'Yerd:' earth.- 'Prai:' meadow.-10 Caller humours:' cool vapours.— "'Gersë:' grass.-12 Bourgeons:' sprouts.-13 Ying:' young.
Endlong the trellis did on twistis hing;
The loukit buttons on the gemmed trees
O'erspreading leaves of nature's tapestries;
Soft grassy verdure after balmy showers,
On curling stalkis smiling to their flowers.
The daisy did on-breid her crownal small,
And every flower unlapped in the dale.
Sere downis small on dentilion sprang,
young green bloomed strawberry leaves amang; Jimp jeryflowers thereon leaves unshet,
Fresh primrose and the purpour violet;
Heavenly lilies, with lockerand toppis white,
Open'd and shew their crestis redemite.
A paradise it seemed to draw near
These galyard gardens and each green herbere.
Most amiable wax the emerald meads;
Swarmis soughis throughout the respand reeds,
Over the lochis and the floodis gray,
Searching by kind a place where they should lay.
Phoebus' red fowl,1 his cural crest can steer,
Oft stretching forth his heckle, crowing clear.
Amid the wortis and the rootis gent
Picking his meat in alleys where he went,
His wives Toppa and Partolet him by-
A bird all-time that hauntis bigamy.
The painted powne2 pacing with plumës gym,
Cast up his tail a proud pleasand wheel-rim,
Yshrouded in his feathering bright and sheen,
Shaping the print of Argus' hundred een,
Among the bowis of the olive twists,
Sere3 small fowls, working crafty nests,
Endlong the hedges thick, and on rank aiks
1 Red fowl: the cock.- Powne:' the peacock.-Sere:' many.- ́Aiks:"
Ilk bird rejoicing with their mirthful makes.
In corners and clear fenestres1 of glass,
Full busily Arachne weaving was,
To knit her nettis and her webbis sly,
Therewith to catch the little midge or fly.
So dusty powder upstours2 in every street,
While corby gasped for the fervent heat.
Under the boughis bene3 in lovely vales,
Within fermance and parkis close of pales,
The busteous buckis rakis forth on raw,
Herdis of hartis through the thick wood-shaw.
The young fawns following the dun does,
Kids, skipping through, runnis after roes.
In leisurs and on leais, little lambs
Full tait and trig sought bleating to their dams.
On salt streams wolk1 Dorida and Thetis,
By running strandis, Nymphis and Naiadis,
Such as we clepe wenches and damasels,
In gersy 5 groves wandering by spring wells;
Of bloomed branches and flowers white and red,
Platting their lusty chaplets for their head.
Some sang ring-songës, dances, leids,6 and rounds.
With voices shrill, while all the dale resounds.
Whereso they walk into their carolling,
For amorous lays does all the rockis ring.
One sang, "The ship sails over the salt faem,
Will bring the merchants and my leman hame.'
Some other sings, I will be blithe and light,
My heart is lent upon so goodly wight.'7
And thoughtful lovers rounis to and fro,
To leis9 their pain, and plain their jolly woe;
'Fenestres:' windows. Upstours:' rises in clouds.
Bene: snug.Wolk:' walked.-Gersy:' grassy.-6 Leids:' lays.- Songs then popular.
8Rounis:' whisper.- 'Leis:' relieve.
After their guise, now singing, now in sorrow,
With heartis pensive the long summer's morrow.
Some ballads list indite of his lady;
Some lives in hope; and some all utterly
Despaired is, and so quite out of grace,
His purgatory he finds in every place.
Dame Nature's minstrels, on that other part,
Their blissful lay intoning every art,
And all small fowlis singis on the spray,
Welcome the lord of light, and lamp of day,
Welcome fosterer of tender herbis green,
Welcome quickener of flourish'd flowers sheen,
Welcome support of every root and vein,
Welcome comfort of all kind fruit and grain.
Welcome the birdis' bield1 upon the brier,
Welcome master and ruler of the year,
Welcome welfare of husbands at the ploughs,
Welcome repairer of woods, trees, and boughs,
Welcome depainter of the bloomed meads,
Welcome the life of every thing that spreads,
Welcome storer of all kind bestial,
Welcome be thy bright beamis, gladding all.
STEPHEN HAWES, a native of Suffolk, wrote about the close of the fifteenth century. He studied at Oxford, and travelled much in France, where he became a master of French and Italian poetry. King Henry VII., struck with his conversation and the readiness with which he repeated old English poets, especially Lydgate, created him groom of the privy chamber. Hawes has written a number of poems, such as 'The Temple of
The Consolation of
Those who wish to
Glasse,' The Conversion of Swearers,' Lovers,' The Pastime of Pleasure,' &c. see specimens of the strange allegories and curious devices of thought in which they abound, may find them in Warton's 'History of English Poetry.'
In that same valuable work we find an account of Alexander Barclay, author of 'The Ship of Fools.' He was educated at Oriel College in Oxford, and after travelling abroad, was appointed one of the priests or prebendaries of the College of St Mary Ottery, in Devonshire-a parish famous in later days for the birth of Coleridge. Barclay became afterwards a Benedictine monk of Ely monastery; and at length a brother of the Order of St Francis, at Canterbury. He died, a very old man, at Croydon, in Surrey, in the year 1552. His principal work, 'The Ship of Fools,' is a satire upon the vices and absurdities of his age, and shews considerable wit and power of sarcasm.
JOHN SKELTON is the name of the next poet. He flourished in the earlier part of the reign of Henry VIII. Having studied both at Oxford and Cambridge, and been laureated at the former university in 1489, he was promoted to the rectory of Diss or Dysse, in Norfolk. Some say he had acted previously as tutor to Henry VIII. At Dysse he attracted attention by satirical ballads against the mendicants, as well as by licences of buffoonery in the pulpit. For these he was censured, and even, it is said, suspended, by Nykke, Bishop of Norwich. Undaunted by this, he flew at higher game-ventured to ridicule Cardinal Wolsey, then in his power, and had to take refuge from the myrmidons of the prelate in Westminster Abbey. There Abbot Islip kindly entertained and protected him till his dying day. He breathed his last in the year 1529, and was buried in the adjacent church of St Margaret's.
Skelton as well as Barclay enjoyed considerable popularity in his own age. Erasmus calls him 'Britannicarum literarum
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