Poem 4
YE
Nymphes
of
Mulla
which
with
carefull
heed,
The
siluer
scaly
trouts
doe
tend
full
well,
and
greedy
pikes
which
vse
therein
to
feed,
(Those
trouts
and
pikes
all
others
doo
excell)
And
ye
likewise
which
keepe
the
rushy
lake,
Where
none
doo
fishes
take.
Bynd
vp
the
locks
the
which
hang
scatterd
light,
And
in
his
waters
which
your
mirror
make,
Behold
your
faces
as
the
christall
bright,
That
when
you
come
whereas
my
loue
doth
lie,
No
blemish
she
may
spie.
And
eke
ye
lightfoot
mayds
which
keepe
the
dore,
That
on
the
hoary
mountayne
vie
to
towre,
And
the
wylde
wolues
which
seeke
them
to
deuoure,
With
your
steele
darts
doo
chace
fro[m]
comming
neer
Be
also
present
heere,
To
helpe
to
decke
her
and
to
help
to
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.