In the midst a Form divine
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line;
Her lyon-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attemper’d sweet to virgin-grace.’
Elizabeth’s reign is to be marked by a revival of poetry in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, and an unending line beyond them. It must be allowed that the skill of the poet has disguised the weakness of the argument. For to make the consolation effective the efflorescence of poetry should have occurred under the first Tudor sovereign, in which case it might poetically have been presumed to be due to him; and the Bard should not have overlooked Chaucer, who flourished under the sway of Edward’s direct descendant Richard II, of whose accession the Bard sings in the only passage of the Ode which has passed into popular currency:
‘Fair laughs the Morn, and soft the Zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o’er the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded Vessel goes;
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;