Poem 9
MOre
then
most
faire,
full
of
the
liuing
fire,
Kindled
aboue
vnto
the
maker
neere:
no
eies
buy
ioyes,
in
which
al
powers
conspire,
that
to
the
world
naught
else
be
counted
deare.
Thrugh
your
bright
beams
doth
not
ye
blinded
guest,
shoot
out
his
darts
to
base
affections
wound:
but
Angels
come
to
lead
fraile
mindes
to
rest
in
chast
desires
on
heauenly
beauty
bound.
You
frame
my
thoughts
and
fashion
me
within,
you
stop
my
toung,
and
teach
my
hart
to
speake,
you
calme
the
storme
that
passion
did
begin,
stro[n]g
thrugh
your
cause,
but
by
your
vertue
weak.
Dark
is
the
world,
where
your
light
shined
neuer;
well
is
he
borne,
that
may
behold
you
euer.
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.