Through me men go into the welle of Grace,
Where green and lusty May shall ever endure.
This is the way to all good aventure;
Be glad thou reader, and thy sorrow offcast.
All open am I, pass in, and hye thee fast.
LECTURE VI
SPENSER
(Friday Evening, January 26, 1855)
VI
Chaucer had been in his grave one hundred and fifty years before England had secreted choice material enough to produce another great poet. Or, perhaps, we take it for granted that Nature understands her own business too well to make such productions cheap. Beauty, we know, has no charm like that of its eternal unexpectedness, and the best delight is that which blossoms from a stem of bare and long days.