Had not James evinced a deficiency of poetic artifice, we mightalmost have suspected that these lowerings of gloomy reflection weremeant as preparative to the brightest scene of his story; and tocontrast with that refulgence of light and loveliness, thatexhilarating accompaniment of bird and song, and foliage and flower,and all the revel of the year, with which he ushers in the lady of hisheart. It is this scene, in particular, which throws all the magicof romance about the old Castle Keep. He had risen, he says, atdaybreak, according to custom, to escape from the dreary meditationsof a sleepless pillow. "Bewailing in his chamber thus alone,"despairing of all joy and remedy, "for, tired of thought andwobegone," he had wandered to the window, to indulge the captive'smiserable solace of gazing wistfully upon the world from which he isexcluded. The window looked forth upon a small garden which lay at thefoot of the tower. It was a quiet, sheltered spot, adorned with arborsand green alleys, and protected from the passing gaze by trees andhawthorn hedges.
Now was there made, fast by the tower's wall,A garden faire, and in the corners setAn arbour green with wandis long and smallRailed about, and so with leaves beset
Was all the place and hawthorn hedges knet,That lyf* was none, walkyng there forbye
That might within scarce any wight espye.
So thick the branches and the leves grene,Beshaded all the alleys that there were,
And midst of every arbour might be sene
The sharpe, grene, swete juniper,
Growing so fair, with branches here and there,That as it seemed to a lyf without,The boughs did spread the arbour all about.
And on the small grene twistis*(2) set
The lytel swete nightingales, and sung
So loud and clear, the hymnis consecrate
Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,
That all the garden and the wallis rung
Right of their song-
* Lyf, Person.
*(2) Twistis, small boughs or twigs.
Note.- The language of the quotations is generally modernized.
It was the month of May, when every thing was in bloom; and heinterprets the song of the nightingale into the language of hisenamored feeling:
Worship, all ye that lovers be, this May,For of your bliss the kalends are begun,
And sing with us, away, winter, away,
Come, summer, come, the sweet season and sun.
As he gazes on the scene, and listens to the notes of the birds,he gradually relapses into one of those tender and undefinablereveries, which fill the youthful bosom in this delicious season. Hewonders what this love may be, of which he has so often read, andwhich thus seems breathed forth in the quickening breath of May, andmelting all nature into ecstasy and song. If it really be so great afelicity, and if it be a boon thus generally dispensed to the mostinsignificant beings, why is he alone cut off from its enjoyments?
Oft would I think, O Lord, what may this be,That love is of such noble myght and kynde?
Loving his folke, and such prosperitee
Is it of him, as we in books do find:
May he oure hertes setten* and unbynd:
Hath he upon our hertes such maistrye?
Or is all this but feynit fantasye?
For giff he be of so grete excellence,
That he of every wight hath care and charge,What have I gilt*(2) to him, or done offense,That I am thral'd, and birdis go at large?
* Setten, incline.
*(2) Gilt, what injury have I done, etc.
In the midst of his musing, as he casts his eye downward, he beholds"the fairest and the freshest young floure" that ever he had seen.
It is the lovely Lady Jane, walking in the garden to enjoy thebeauty of that "fresh May morrowe." Breaking thus suddenly upon hissight, in the moment of loneliness and excited susceptibility, sheat once captivates the fancy of the romantic prince, and becomes theobject of his wandering wishes, the sovereign of his ideal world.
There is, in this charming scene, an evident resemblance to theearly part of Chaucer's Knight's Tale; where Palamon and Arcite fallin love with Emilia, whom they see walking in the garden of theirprison. Perhaps the similarity of the actual fact to the incidentwhich he had read in Chaucer may have induced James to dwell on itin his poem. His description of the Lady Jane is given in thepicturesque and minute manner of his master; and being doubtless takenfrom the life, is a perfect portrait of a beauty of that day. Hedwells, with the fondness of a lover, on every article of her apparel,from the net of pearl, splendent with emeralds and sapphires, thatconfined her golden hair, even to the "goodly chaine of smallorfeverye"* about her neck, whereby there hung a ruby in shape of aheart, that seemed, he says, like a spark of fire burning upon herwhite bosom. Her dress of white tissue was looped up to enable herto walk with more *******. She was accompanied by two femaleattendants, and about her sported a little hound decorated with bells;probably the small Italian hound of exquisite symmetry, which was aparlor favorite and pet among the fashionable dames of ancienttimes. James closes his description by a burst of general eulogium:
* Wrought gold.
In her was youth, beauty, with humble port,Bounty, richesse, and womanly feature;
God better knows then my pen can report,
Wisdom, largesse,* estate,*(2) and cunning*(3) sure,In every point so guided her measure,In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance,That nature might no more her child advance.
* Largesse, bounty.
*(2) Estate, dignity.
*(3) Cunning, discretion.