This poem is scarcely worthy of the sad occasion--the
flower of knighthood cut down ere its prime, not yet

In flushing
When blighting was nearest.

Certainly it in no way expresses what Spenser
undoubtedly felt when the woeful news came across the
Channel to him in his Irish home. Probably his grief
was 'too deep for tears.' It was probably one of those
'huge cares' which, in Seneca's phrase, not
'loquuntur,' but 'stupent.' He would fain have been
dumb and opened not his mouth; but the fashion of the
time called upon him to speak. He was expected to
bring his immortelle, so to say, and lay it on his
hero's tomb, though his limbs would scarcely support
him, and his hand, quivering with the agony of his
heart, could with difficulty either weave it or carry
it. All the six years they had been parted, the image
of that chivalrous form had never been forgotten. It
had served for the one model of all that was highest
and noblest in his eyes. It had represented for him
all true knighthood. Nor all the years that he lived
after Sidney's death was it forgotten. It is often
before him, as he writes his later poetry, and is
greeted always with undying love and sorrow. Thus in
the _Ruines of Time_, he breaks out in a sweet fervour
of unextinguished affection:

Most gentle spirite breathed from above,