The
active research of Dr. Grosart has discovered that this
lady belonged to the Boyle family--a family already of
importance and destined to be famous. The family seat
was at Kilcoran, near Youghal, and so we understand
Spenser's singing of 'The sea that neighbours to her
near.' Thus she lived in the same county with her
poet. The whole course of the wooing and the winning
is portrayed in the _Amoretti or Sonnets_ and the
_Epithalamium_. It may be gathered from these
biographically and otherwise interesting pieces, that
it was at the close of the year 1592 that the poet was
made a captive of that beauty he so fondly describes.
The first three sonnets would seem to have been written
in that year. The fourth celebrates the beginning of
the year 1593--the beginning according to our modern
way of reckoning. All through that year 1593 the lover
sighed, beseeched, adored, despaired, prayed again.
Fifty-eight sonnets chronicle the various hopes and
fears of that year. The object of his passion remained
as steel and flint, while he wept and wailed and
pleaded. His life was a long torment.
In vaine I seeke and sew to her for grace
And doe myne humbled hart before her poure;
The whiles her foot she in my necke doth place
And tread my life downe in the lowly floure.
In Lent she is his 'sweet saynt,' and he vows to find
some fit service for her.
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