“My shoulders broad,
    And layed neck with garments ’gan I spread,
    And thereon cast a yellow lion’s skin;
    And thereupon my burden I receive. 
    Young Iulus clasped in my right hand,
    Followeth me fast, with unequal pace,
    And at my back my wife.  Thus did we pass
    By places shadowed most with the night,
    And me, whom late the dart which enemies threw,
    Nor press of Argive routs could make amaz’d,
    Each whisp’ring wind hath power now to fray,
    And every sound to move my doubtful mind. 
    So much I dread my burden and my fere.*
        And now we ’gan draw near unto the gate,
    Right well escap’d the danger, as me thought,
    When that at hand a sound of feet we heard. 
    My father then, gazing throughout the dark,
    Cried on me, ‘Flee, son! they are at hand.’ 
    With that, bright shields, and shene** armours I saw
    But then, I know not what unfriendly god
    My troubled with from me bereft for fear. 
    For while I ran by the most secret streets,
    Eschewing still the common haunted track,
    From me, catif, alas! bereaved was
    Creusa then, my spouse; I wot not how,
    Whether by fate, or missing of the way,
    Or that she was by weariness retain’d;
    But never sith these eyes might her behold. 
    Nor did I yet perceive that she was lost,
    Nor never backward turned I my mind;
    Till we came to the hill whereon there stood
    The old temple dedicated to Ceres. 
        And when that we were there assembled all,
    She was only away deceiving us,
    Her spouse, her son, and all her company. 
    What god or man did I not then accuse,
    Near wode *** for ire? or what more cruel chance
    Did hap to me in all Troy’s overthrow?”

    Companion.
    *Bright.
    ***Mad.

Chapter XLI SPENSER—­THE “SHEPHERD’S CALENDAR”

WHEN Henry signed Surrey’s death-warrant he himself was near death, and not many weeks later the proud and violent king met his end.  Then followed for England changeful times.  After Protestant Edward came for a tragic few days Lady Jane.  Then followed the short, sad reign of Catholic Mary, who, dying, left the throne free for her brilliant sister Elizabeth.  Those years, from the death of King Henry VIII to the end of the first twenty years of Elizabeth’s reign, were years of action rather than of production.  They were years of struggle, during which England was swayed to and fro in the fight of religions.  They were years during which the fury of the storm of the Reformation worked itself out.  But although they were such unquiet years they were also years of growth, and at the end of that time there blossomed forth one of the fairest seasons of our literature.