Poem 8
HArke
how
the
Minstrels
gin
to
shrill
aloud,
Their
merry
Musick
that
resounds
from
far,
The
pipe,
the
tabor,
and
the
trembling
Croud,
That
well
agree
withouten
breach
or
iar.
But
most
of
all
the
Damzels
doe
delite,
When
they
their
tymbrels
smyte,
And
thereunto
doe
daunce
and
carrol
sweet,
That
all
the
sences
they
doe
rauish
quite,
The
whyles
the
boyes
run
vp
and
downe
the
street,
Crying
aloud
with
strong
confused
noyce,
As
if
it
were
one
voyce.
Hymen
io
Hymen,
Hymen
they
do
shout,
That
euen
to
the
heauens
theyr
shouting
shrill
Doth
reach,
and
all
the
firmament
doth
fill,
To
which
the
people
standing
all
about,
As
in
approuance
doe
thereto
applaud
And
loud
aduance
her
laud,
And
euermore
they
Hymen
Hymen
sing,
that
al
the
woods
them
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.