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Spenser's descriptions in the Faëry Queen are grand and luxurious pictures, at which we gaze afar off, and wonder and admire, and gaze again; and by these he is chiefly known. But it is in his pastoral poems, his "Shepheard's Calendar," "Colin Clout," "Hymmes of Beauty," "Muiopotmos," "Prothalamion," and "Epithalamion," his many sweet sonnets, and his "Ruines of Time," that Spenser's truly natural poetry is found; and it is most true and beautiful. "Poets paint with the pen" said one of the Caracci; and plentifully scattered through the above mentioned poems are pictures of pure sylvan loveliness that the pencil of Claude himself could not exceed. We might almost fancy they were endowed with some spell of enchantment, they have such a delightfully calm, happy effect on the mind engaged in their contemplation.
We will now
"Pursue his footing light
Through the wide woods and groves, with greene leaves dight."
The following exquisite stanzas are in his "Virgil's Gnat:"
The verie nature of the place, resounding
With gentle murmure of the breathing ayre,
A pleasaunt bowre with all delight abounding
In the freshe shadowe did for them prepayre,
To rest their limbs, with wearines redounding.
For first the high palme-trees, with braunches faire,
Out of the lowly vallies did arise,
And high shoote up their heades into the skyes.
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