All sorts of Fame sit cheek-by-jowl,
Pearls in that string—the Table d'Hote.
Few later writers have set the pearl in as wide a range of ideas or in language as beautiful as Edmund Spenser. The tears of Stella in "The Mourning Muse of Thestylis" are more precious and gem-like than those in any lines which have followed until now. In these lines they are priceless jewels royally set.
And from those two bright starres to him sometime so deere,
Her heart sent drops of pearle, which fell in foyson downe
Twixt lilly and the rose.
As a means to wake imagination to the physical charms of woman his use of the gem is equally happy and graceful, for there is always a soul in the flesh of his beauty as when he depicts the charms of a fair one in one of his "Sonnets."
But fairest she, when so she doth display
The gate with pearles and rubyes richly dight;
Through which her words so wise do make their way