'Thou barren ground, whom winter's wrath has wasted, Art made a mirror to behold my plight.'*Pah! away with frosts, icicles, and tears, and sighs--"* "The Shepherd's Calendar."
"And with hexameters and trimeters too, I hope," interrupted Raleigh: "and all the trickeries of self-pleasing sorrow.""--I will set my heart to higher work than barking at the hand which chastens me.""Wilt put the lad into the 'Faerie Queene,' then, by my side? He deserves as good a place there, believe me, as ever a Guyon, or even as Lord Grey your Arthegall.Let us hail him.Hallo! young chanticleer of Devon! Art not afraid of a chance shot, that thou crowest so lustily upon thine own mixen?""Cocks crow all night long at Christmas, Captain Raleigh, and so do I," said Amyas's cheerful voice; "but who's there with you?""A penitent pupil of yours--Mr.Secretary Spenser.""Pupil of mine?" said Amyas."I wish he'd teach me a little of his art; I could fill up my time here with making verses.""And who would be your theme, fair sir?" said Spenser.
"No 'who' at all.I don't want to make sonnets to blue eyes, nor black either: but if I could put down some of the things I saw in the Spice Islands--""Ah," said Raleigh, "he would beat you out of Parnassus, Mr.
Secretary.Remember, you may write about Fairyland, but he has seen it.""And so have others," said Spenser; "it is not so far off from any one of us.Wherever is love and loyalty, great purposes, and lofty souls, even though in a hovel or a mine, there is Fairyland.""Then Fairyland should be here, friend; for you represent love, and Leigh loyalty; while, as for great purposes and lofty souls, who so fit to stand for them as I, being (unless my enemies and my conscience are liars both) as ambitious and as proud as Lucifer's own self?""Ah, Walter, Walter, why wilt always slander thyself thus?""Slander? Tut.--I do but give the world a fair challenge, and tell it, 'There--you know the worst of me: come on and try a fall, for either you or I must down.' Slander? Ask Leigh here, who has but known me a fortnight, whether I am not as vain as a peacock, as selfish as a fox, as imperious as a bona roba, and ready to make a cat's paw of him or any man, if there be a chestnut in the fire:
and yet the poor fool cannot help loving me, and running of my errands, and taking all my schemes and my dreams for gospel; and verily believes now, I think, that I shall be the man in the moon some day, and he my big dog.""Well," said Amyas, half apologetically, "if you are the cleverest man in the world what harm in my thinking so?""Hearken to him, Edmund! He will know better when he has outgrown this same callow trick of honesty, and learnt of the great goddess Detraction how to show himself wiser than the wise, by pointing out to the world the fool's motley which peeps through the rents in the philosopher's cloak.Go to, lad! slander thy equals, envy thy betters, pray for an eye which sees spots in every sun, and for a vulture's nose to scent carrion in every rose-bed.If thy friend win a battle, show that he has needlessly thrown away his men; if he lose one, hint that he sold it; if he rise to a place, argue favor; if he fall from one, argue divine justice.Believe nothing, hope nothing, but endure all things, even to kicking, if aught may be got thereby; so shalt thou be clothed in purple and fine linen, and sit in kings' palaces, and fare sumptuously every day.""And wake with Dives in the torment," said Amyas."Thank you for nothing, captain.""Go to, Misanthropos," said Spenser."Thou hast not yet tasted the sweets of this world's comfits, and thou railest at them?""The grapes are sour, lad."
"And will be to the end," said Amyas, "if they come off such a devil's tree as that.I really think you are out of your mind, Captain Raleigh, at times.""I wish I were; for it is a troublesome, hungry, windy mind as man ever was cursed withal.But come in, lad.We were sent from the lord deputy to bid thee to supper.There is a dainty lump of dead horse waiting for thee.""Send me some out, then," said matter-of-fact Amyas."And tell his lordship that, with his good leave, I don't stir from here till morning, if I can keep awake.There is a stir in the fort, and Iexpect them out on us."
"Tut, man! their hearts are broken.We know it by their deserters.""Seeing's believing.I never trust runaway rogues.If they are false to their masters, they'll be false to us.""Well, go thy ways, old honesty; and Mr.Secretary shall give you a book to yourself in the 'Faerie Queene'--'Sir Monoculus or the Legend of Common Sense,' eh, Edmund?""Monoculus?"