He neither shall be clothed
     In purple nor in pall,
     But in the fair white linen
     That usen babies all.’

     As Joseph was a-walking
     Thus did the angel sing,
     And Mary’s Son at midnight
     Was born to be our King.

     Then be you glad, good people,
     At this time of the year;
     And light you up your candles,
     For His star it shineth clear.”

“There, Edmunde Classicaster,” said Raleigh, “does not that simple strain go nearer to the heart of him who wrote ’The Shepherd’s Calendar,’ than all artificial and outlandish

     ‘Wote ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face?’

Why dost not answer, man?”

But Spenser was silent awhile, and then,—­

“Because I was thinking rather of the rhymer than the rhyme.  Good heaven! how that brave lad shames me, singing here the hymns which his mother taught him, before the very muzzles of Spanish guns; instead of bewailing unmanly, as I have done, the love which he held, I doubt not, as dear as I did even my Rosalind.  This is his welcome to the winter’s storm; while I, who dream, forsooth, of heavenly inspiration, can but see therein an image of mine own cowardly despair.

     ’Thou barren ground, whom winter’s wrath has wasted,
     Art made a mirror to behold my plight.’*

Pah! away with frosts, icicles, and tears, and sighs—­”

     * “The Shepherd’s Calendar.”

“And with hexameters and trimeters too, I hope,” interrupted Raleigh:  “and all the trickeries of self-pleasing sorrow.”

“—­I will set my heart to higher work than barking at the hand which chastens me.”

“Wilt put the lad into the ‘Faerie Queene,’ then, by my side?  He deserves as good a place there, believe me, as ever a Guyon, or even as Lord Grey your Arthegall.  Let us hail him.  Hallo! young chanticleer of Devon!  Art not afraid of a chance shot, that thou crowest so lustily upon thine own mixen?”

“Cocks crow all night long at Christmas, Captain Raleigh, and so do I,” said Amyas’s cheerful voice; “but who’s there with you?”

“A penitent pupil of yours—­Mr. Secretary Spenser.”

“Pupil of mine?” said Amyas.  “I wish he’d teach me a little of his art; I could fill up my time here with making verses.”

“And who would be your theme, fair sir?” said Spenser.

“No ‘who’ at all.  I don’t want to make sonnets to blue eyes, nor black either:  but if I could put down some of the things I saw in the Spice Islands—­”

“Ah,” said Raleigh, “he would beat you out of Parnassus, Mr. Secretary.  Remember, you may write about Fairyland, but he has seen it.”

“And so have others,” said Spenser; “it is not so far off from any one of us.  Wherever is love and loyalty, great purposes, and lofty souls, even though in a hovel or a mine, there is Fairyland.”