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.