Poem 7
NOw
is
my
loue
all
ready
forth
to
come,
Let
all
the
virgins
therefore
well
awayt,
And
ye
fresh
boyes
that
tend
vpon
her
groome
Prepare
your
selues;
for
he
is
comming
strayt.
Set
all
your
things
in
seemely
good
aray
Fit
for
so
ioyfull
day,
The
ioyfullst
day
that
euer
sunne
did
see
Faire
Sun,
shew
forth
thy
fauourable
ray,
And
let
thy
lifull
heat
not
feruent
be
For
feare
of
burning
her
sunshyny
face,
Her
beauty
to
disgrace.
O
fayrest
Phoebus,
father
of
the
Muse,
If
euer
I
did
honour
thee
aright,
Or
sing
the
thing,
that
mote
thy
mind
delight,
Doe
not
thy
seruants
simple
boone
refuse,
But
let
this
day
let
this
one
day
be
myne,
Let
all
the
rest
be
thine.
Then
I
thy
souerayne
prayses
loud
wil
sing,
That
all
the
woods
shal
answer
and
theyr
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.