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Updated: May 15, 2025
Spenser's beautiful allusion in the Prothalamion to "mery London my most kyndly nurse" and to the "sweet Thames" whom he invites to "run softely till I end my song" is among the few tributes of personal affection paid by our poets to the great city. And it is still true to-day that the tutelary genius of London is none of the great poets: it is Samuel Johnson.
His aerial creations resemble the blossoms of the epiphytic orchids, which have no root in the soil, but draw their nourishment from the moisture of the air. Their birth was of the womb of morning dew, And their conception of the glorious prime. Among the minor poems of Spenser the most delightful were his Prothalamion and Epithalamion.
In his "Prothalamion" he thus pleads guilty to the chime of Bow-bells in his infant ear: "At length they all to merrie London came, To merrie London, my most kindly nurse, That to me gave this life's first native source; Though from another place I take my name And house of ancient fame." At what time of his life he became connected with Ireland is very uncertain; it was probably early.
In 1595-1596 he published also his Daphnaida, Prothalamion, and the four hymns on Love and Beauty, and on Heavenly Love and Heavenly Beauty. In 1598, in Tyrone's rebellion, Kilcolman Castle was sacked and burned, and Spenser, with his family, fled to London, where he died in January, 1599.
In the following year appeared his Four Hymns, two on Love and Beauty and two on Heavenly Love and Beauty, and the Prothalamion on the marriage of two daughters of the Earl of Worcester. He also pub. in prose his View of Ireland, a work full of shrewd observation and practical statesmanship.
Other love lyrics which should be read are Spenser's Prothalamion, Lodge's Love in My Bosom Like a Bee and Ben Jonson's To Celia. Among pastoral lyrics, read from Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar for August, 1579, Perigo and Willie's duet, beginning: "It fell upon a holy eve," and Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.
Astrophel in memory of Sidney 1586, visited by Raleigh and by him presented to Queen Elizabeth, who pensioned him 1590, and in same year pub. first three books of Faerie Queen, Teares of Muses, etc., writes Colin Clout, pub. 1595, and in 1596 pub. Four Hymns and Prothalamion, m.
"It means that it was to be sung to a tune called Shoshannim or Lilies doubtless a well-known one." "It has a beautiful name, then; and he calls it too 'Maschil, A song of Loves." "Historically no doubt you are right," agreed Mr. Hichens. "The song is undoubtedly later than David, and was written as a Prothalamion for a royal bride.
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