“Soldier brave, my love!” she said,
      “Where is now my Paris? 
    Fights he in the field, or where
      In the wide word tarries? 
    Oh, the soldier’s life, I swear,
      All life’s glory carries;
    Only valour clothed in arms
      With Dame Venus marries!”

Phyllis thus opens the question whether a soldier or a scholar be the fitter for love.  Flora responds, and for some time they conduct the dispute in true scholastic fashion.  Being unable to settle it between themselves, they resolve to seek out Love himself, and to refer the matter to his judgment.  One girl mounts a mule, the other a horse; and these are no ordinary animals, for Neptune reared one beast as a present to Venus, Vulcan forged the metal-work of bit and saddle, Minerva embroidered the trappings, and so forth.  After a short journey they reach the Garden of Love, which is described with a truly luxuriant wealth of imagery.  It resembles some of the earlier Renaissance pictures, especially one of great excellence by a German artist which I once saw in a dealer’s shop at Venice, and which ought now to grace a public gallery.

FLORA AND PHYLLIS.

PART III.

No. 29.

    On their steeds the ladies ride,
      Two fair girls and slender;
    Modest are their eyes and mild,
      And their cheeks are tender. 
    Thus young lilies break the sheath,
      Budding roses render
    Blushes, and twinned pairs of stars
      Climb the heavens with splendour.

    Toward Love’s Paradise they fare,
      Such, I ween, their will is;
    While the strife between the pair
      Turns their cheeks to lilies;
    Phyllis Flora flouts, and fair
      Flora flouteth Phyllis;
    Flora’s hand a hawk doth bear,
      And a goshawk Phyllis.

    After a short space they came
      Where a grove was growing;
    At the entrance of the same
      Rills with murmur flowing;
    There the wind with myrrh and spice
      Redolent was blowing,
    Sounds of timbrel, harp, and lyre
      Through the branches going.

    All the music man could make
      There they heard in plenty;
    Timbrel, psaltery, lyre, and lute,
      Harp and viol dainty;
    Voices that in part-song meet
      Choiring forte, lente;
    Sounds the diatesseron,
      Sounds the diapente.

    All the tongues of all the birds
      With full cry were singing;
    There the blackbird’s melody
      Sweet and true was ringing;
    Wood-dove, lark, and thrush on high
      Jocund anthems flinging,
    With the nightingale, who still
      To her grief was clinging.