SHE IS NOT FAIR
She is not fair to outward view
As many maidens be;
Her loveliness I never knew
Until she smiled on me.
O then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.
But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne’er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold
The love-light in her eye:
Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are.
NOTES
Epithalamion.—Page [3].
Written by Spenser on his marriage in Ireland, in 1594, with Elizabeth Boyle of Kilcoran, who survived him, married one Roger Seckerstone, and was again a widow. Dr. Grosart seems to have finally decided the identity of the heroine of this great poem. It is worth while to explain, once for all, that I do not use the accented e for the longer pronunciation of the past participle. The accent is not an English sign, and, to my mind, disfigures the verse; neither do I think it necessary to cut off the e with an apostrophe when the participle is shortened. The reader knows at a glance how the word is to be numbered; besides, he may have his preferences where choice is allowed. In reading such a line as Tennyson’s
‘Dear as remembered kisses after death,’
one man likes the familiar sound of the word ‘remembered’ as we all speak it now; another takes pleasure in the four light syllables filling the line so full. Tennyson uses the apostrophe as a rule, but neither he nor any other author is quite consistent.
Rosalynd’s Madrigal.—Page [21].
It may please the reader to think that this frolic, rich, and delicate singer was Shakespeare’s very Rosalind. From Dr. Thomas Lodge’s novel, Euphues’ Golden Legacy, was taken much of the story, with some of the characters, and some few of the passages, of As You Like It.