So may thy tender blossoms fear no blite,
Nor goats with venom'd teeth thy tendrils bite,
As thou shalt guide my wand'ring feet to find
The fragrant greens I seek, my brows to bind.

It would appear a difficult and a dangerous task to enter into competition with passages such as I have now given; yet, rich and appropriate as these Chaucerian pictures must be esteemed, they are rivalled, if not surpassed, by the Mornings in Spring of Dunbar. Both the "Golden Terge," and the "Thistle and the Rose," open with the most glowing and delicious representations of the dawning of a vernal day. In the first of these the poet is described as leaving his bed with the morning star, and watching for the rising of the sun, the effects of which on the landscape he has painted with a warmth and fidelity worthy of the pencil of Titian : Right as the starre of day began to shyne, When gone to bed was Vesper and Lucyne, I raise, and by a rosier* did me rest : Upsprang the golden candle matutine, With clear depurit + bemis chrystalline, Gladding the mirry fowlis in their nest, Or Phoebus was in purple cape revest ‡. Upsprang the lark, the heaven's menstrel syne §, In May intill a morrow mirthfullest.

* Rose tree. + Purified. ‡ Dressed.

VOL. II.

§ Then. C

Full angel-like thir birdis sang their hours
Within their curtains green, within their bowers,
Apparell'd, white and red, with bloomis sweet:
Enamel'd was the field with all colours:

The pearled drops shook as in silver showers,
While all in balm did branch and levis fleit * :
Depart fra Phoebus did Aurora greite † :
Her chrystal tears I saw hang on the flowers,
Which he, for love, all drank up with his heit.

For mirth of May, with skippis and with hoppis,
The birdis sang upon the tender croppis‡

With curious notes, as Venus chapel-clarks:
The roses red, now spreading of their knoppis §,
Were powder'd bright with heavenly beryl-droppis,
Through bemis red lemyng || as ruby sparks;
The skyis rang with shouting of the larks;
The purple heaven owre skal'd in silver sloppis,
Owre gilt the treis, branches, leaves, and barks.

Down through the rys ¶ ane river ran with stremis
So lustily upon the lykand** lemis

That all the lake as lamp did leme of light,
Which shadowed all about with twinkling glemis;
The bewis it baithit were in second bemis

Through the reflex of Phoebus visage bright;
On every side the eget raise on hicht;

The bank was green, the sun was full of bemis,
The streamers clear as starres in frosty night.

The crystal air, the saphire firmament,

The ruby skyies of the red orient,

*

Kest beryl beams on emʼrald bewis green:
The rosy garth † depaynt and redolent,
With purple, azure, gold and gowlis ‡ gent,
Array'd was by Dame Flora the Queen,
So nobilly, that joy was for to sene ;
The rock against the river resplendent
As low illuminate all the levis schene §.

What through the merry fowlis harmony,
And through the river's sound that ran me by,
On Flora's mantle I sleeped where I lay;
Where soon, unto my dreamis phantasy,
I saw approach, against the orient sky,
Ane sail, as blossom white upon the spray,
With mast of gold, bright as the star of day,
Which tended to the land full lustily

With swiftest motion through a crystal bay.

After a vision of considerable length, and incomparably rich in allegorical imagery, the poet is thus awakened from his slumber :

And as I did awake of this swowning ||,

The joyful fowlis merrily did sing

For mirth of Phoebus tender bemis schene :

* Cast.

Garden.

Gules, the heraldic term for red.

§ The rock resplendent from the reflection of the river, illuminated, as with low or flame, all the bright leaves.

|| Dream.

Sweet was the vapours, soft the morrowing,
Wholesome the vale, depaint with flowers ying,
The air intemperate, sober and amene ;

In white and red was all the earth besene,
Through Nature's noble fresh enameling
In mirthful May, of every moneth Queen.

If we now turn to the initiatory stanzas of the Thistle and the Rose, in which the bard fancies himself addressed in a dream by May, who urges him to write something in her honour, and to welcome the return of Spring, we shall find a picture of not less consummate elegance and beauty, and perhaps of still greater animation:

When March was with varying windis past,
And April had with her silver showers
Tane leave at Nature with ane orient blast,

And lusty May, that mother is of flowers,
Had made the birdis to begin their hours *,
Amang the tender odours red and white,
Whose harmony to hear it was delight;

In bed at morrow sleeping as I lay,
Methought Aurora with her crystal ene
In at the window looked by the day,

And halsitt me with visage pale and green;
On whose hand a lark sang, fro the spleen ‡,
"Awake, Lovers, out of your slumbering,
See how the lusty morrow doth upspring!"

* Orisons.

+ Hailed.

With good will

Methought fresh May before my bed upstude,
In weed depaint of mony diverse hue,
Sober, benign, and full of mansuetude,

In bright attire of flouris forged new,
Heavenly of color, white, red, brown, and blue,
Balmy in dew, and gilt with Phoebus' bemys;
Quhyl all the house illumynit of her lemys.
Sluggard, she said, awake, anon, for shame,
And in my honour something thou go write:
The lark has done the merry day proclaim,

To raise up lovers with comfort and delight;
Yet nought increase thy courage to indite,
Whose heart sometime has glad and blissful been,
Sangis to make under the leavis green.

The poet and his conductress then enter a garden filled with flowers, and breathing odours redolent of paradise, when immediately

The purple sun, with tender bemys red,
In orient bright as angel did appear,
Through golden skyis putting up his head,

Quhois gilt tresses shone so wonder clear,
That all the world take comfort far and near.-

And, as the blissful son of cherarchy*,

The fowlis sung through comfort of the light;

The birdis did with open voices cry,

"O Lovers, fo away thow dully night,

And welcome day that comforts every wight :

Hail May, hail Flora, hail Aurora schene,
Hail princess Nature, hail Venus, lovers queen!"

* Hierarchy.-Job, ch. xxxviii. v. 7. The morning stars singing together.