"The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay; Ah! see, whoso fayre thing dost thou fain to see, In springing flower the image of thy day! Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly she Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty, That fairer seems the less ye see her may! Lo! see soon after, how more bold and free Her bared bosom she doth broad display; Lo! see soon after, how she fades and falls away! So passeth in the passing of a day Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower; Ne more doth flourish after first decay, That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower Of many a lady and many a paramour! Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age that will her pride deflower; Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time, Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime. [2] He ceased; and then gan all the quire of birds Their divers notes to attune unto his lay, As in approvance of his pleasing wordes. The constant pair heard all that he did say, Yet swerved not, but kept their forward way Through many covert groves and thickets close, In which they creeping did at last display [3] That wanton lady with her lover loose, Whose sleepy head she in her lap did soft dispose. Upon a bed of roses she was laid As faint through heat, or dight to pleasant sin; And was arrayed or rather disarrayed, All in a veil of silk and silver thin, That hid no whit her alabaster skin, But rather shewed more white, if more might be: More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; Nor the fine nets, which oft we woven see Of scorched dew, do not in the air more lightly flee. Her snowy breast was bare to greedy spoil Of hungry eyes which n' ote therewith be fill'd, And yet through languor of her late sweet toil Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill'd, That like pure Orient perles adown it trill'd; And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight Moisten'd their fiery beams, with which she thrill'd Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light, Which sparkling on the silent waves does seem more bright." ___ [2] Taken from Tasso. [3] This word is an instance of those unwarrantable freedoms which Spenser sometimes took with language. ___ The finest things in Spenser are, the character of Una, in the first book; the House of Pride; the Cave of Mammon, and the Cave of Despair; the account of Memory, of whom it is said, among other things, "The wars he well remember'd of King Nine, Of old Assaracus and Inachus divine";