me.
All the stars in Heaven that shine,
And ten thousand more, are mine:
Only bend thy knee to me,
Thy wooing shall thy winning be."

_The Purple Island_, Phineas Fletcher's chief work, is an allegorical poem
of the human body, written in a stanza different only from that of
_Christ's Victory_ in being of seven lines only, the quintet of Giles being
cut down to a regular elegiac quatrain. This is still far below the
Spenserian stanza, and the colour is inferior to that of Giles. Phineas
follows Spenser's manner, or rather his mannerisms, very closely indeed,
and in detached passages not unsuccessfully, as here, where the transition
from Spenser to Milton is marked:--

"The early morn lets out the peeping day,
And strew'd his path with golden marigolds:
The Moon grows wan, and stars fly all away.
Whom Lucifer locks up in wonted folds
Till light is quench'd, and Heaven in seas hath flung
The headlong day: to th' hill the shepherds throng
And Thirsil now began to end his task and song:

"'Who now, alas! shall teach my humble vein,
That never yet durst peep from covert glade,
But softly learnt for fear to sigh and plain
And vent her griefs to silent myrtle's shade?
Who now shall teach to change my oaten quill
For trumpet 'larms, or humble verses fill
With graceful majesty, and lofty rising skill?

"'Ah, thou dread Spirit! shed thy holy fire,
Thy holy flame, into my frozen heart;
Teach thou my creeping measures to aspire
And swell in bigger notes, and higher art:
Teach my low Muse thy fierce alarms to ring,
And raise my soft strain to high thundering,
Tune thou my lofty song; thy battles must I sing.

"'Such as thou wert within the sacred breast
Of that thrice famous poet, shepherd, king;
And taught'st his heart to frame his cantos best
Of all that e'er thy glorious works did sing;
Or as, those holy fishers once among,
Thou flamedst bright with sparkling parted tongues;
And brought'st down Heaven to Earth in those all-conquering songs.'"

But where both fail is first in the adjustment of the harmony of the
individual stanza as a verse paragraph, and secondly in the management of
their fable. Spenser has everywhere a certain romance-interest both of
story and character which carries off in its steady current, where carrying
off is needed, both his allegorising and his long descriptions.