Poem 18
NOw
welcome
night,
thou
night
so
long
expected,
that
long
daies
labour
doest
at
last
defray,
And
all
my
cares,
which
cruell
loue
collected,
Hast
sumd
in
one,
and
cancelled
for
aye:
Spread
thy
broad
wing
ouer
my
loue
and
me,
that
no
man
may
vs
see,
And
in
thy
sable
mantle
vs
enwrap,
>From
feare
of
perrill
and
foule
horror
free.
Let
no
false
treason
seeke
vs
to
entrap,
Nor
any
dread
disquiet
once
annoy
the
safety
of
our
ioy:
But
let
the
night
be
calme
and
quietsome,
Without
tempestuous
storms
or
sad
afray:
Lyke
as
when
Ioue
with
fayre
Alcmena
lay,
When
he
begot
the
great
Tirynthian
groome:
Or
lyke
as
when
he
with
thy
selfe
did
lie,
And
begot
Maiesty.
And
let
the
mayds
and
yongmen
cease
to
sing:
Ne
let
the
woods
them
answer,
nor
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.