Poem 15

RIng ye the bels, ye yong men of the towne,

And leaue your wonted labors for this day:

This day is holy; doe ye write it dovvne,

that ye for euer it remember may.

This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight,

With Barnaby the bright,

>From whence declining daily by degrees,

He somewhat loseth of his heat and light,

When once the Crab behind his back he sees.

But for this time it ill ordained was,

To chose the longest day in all the yeare,

And shortest night, when longest fitter weare.

Yet neuer day so long, but late would passe.

Ring ye the bels, to make it weare away,

And bonefiers make all day,

And daunce about them, and about them sing:

that all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring.

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser (born 1552/53, London, England—died January 13, 1599, London) English poet whose long allegorical poem The Faerie Queene is one of the greatest in the English language. It was written in what came to be called the Spenserian stanza. In 1598 rebels attacked and burned Kilcolman Castle, forcing Spenser and his family to flee to Cork. In December he returned to England, where he delivered a report on the Irish crisis at Whitehall on Christmas Eve. Three weeks later, on 13 January 1599, he died, perhaps of illness brought on by exhaustion. He was buried soon after in the south transept of Westminster Abbey in the Poets’ Corner.

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Poem 15

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