And in the thickest covert of that shade
      There was a pleasaunt arber, not by art
      But of the trees owne inclination made,
      Which knitting their rancke braunches part to part,
      With wanton yvie-twine entrayld athwart,
      And eglantine and caprifole emong,
      Fashioned above within their inmost part,
      That neither Phoebus beams could through them throng,
    Nor Aeolus sharp blast could worke them any wrong.

      And all about grew every sort of flowre,
      To which sad lovers were transformde of yore,
      Fresh Hyacinthus, Phoebus paramoure
      And dearest love;
      Foolish Narcisse, that likes the watry shore;
      Sad Amaranthus, made a flowre but late,
      Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple gore
      Me seemes I see Amintas wretched fate,
    To whom sweet poet’s verse hath given endlesse date.

Fairie Queene, Book III.  Canto VI.

I must here give a few stanzas from Spenser’s description of the Bower of Bliss

    In which whatever in this worldly state
    Is sweet and pleasing unto living sense,
    Or that may dayntiest fantasy aggrate
    Was poured forth with pleantiful dispence.

The English poet in his Fairie Queene has borrowed a great deal from Tasso and Ariosto, but generally speaking, his borrowings, like those of most true poets, are improvements upon the original.

THE BOWER OF BLISS.

      There the most daintie paradise on ground
      Itself doth offer to his sober eye,
      In which all pleasures plenteously abownd,
      And none does others happinesse envye;
      The painted flowres; the trees upshooting hye;
      The dales for shade; the hilles for breathing-space;
      The trembling groves; the christall running by;
      And that which all faire workes doth most aggrace,
    The art, which all that wrought, appeared in no place.

      One would have thought, (so cunningly the rude[039]
      And scorned partes were mingled with the fine,)
      That Nature had for wantonesse ensude
      Art, and that Art at Nature did repine;
      So striving each th’ other to undermine,
      Each did the others worke more beautify;
      So diff’ring both in willes agreed in fine;
      So all agreed, through sweete diversity,
    This Gardin to adorn with all variety.

      And in the midst of all a fountaine stood,
      Of richest substance that on earth might bee,
      So pure and shiny that the silver flood
      Through every channel running one might see;
      Most goodly it with curious ymageree
      Was over-wrought, and shapes of naked boyes,
      Of which some seemed with lively iollitee
      To fly about, playing their wanton toyes,
    Whylest others did themselves embay in liquid ioyes.