Poem 19

LEt no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull teares,

Be heard all night within nor yet without:

Ne let false whispers breeding hidden feares,

Breake gentle sleepe with misconceiued dout.

Let no deluding dreames, nor dreadful sights

Make sudden sad affrights;

Ne let housefyres, nor lightnings helpelesse harmes,

Ne led the Ponke, nor other euill sprights,

Ne let mischiuous witches with theyr charmes,

Ne let hob Goblins, names whose sence we see not,

Fray vs with things that be not.

Let not the shriech Oule, nor the Storke be heard:

Nor the night Rauen that still deadly yels,

Nor damned ghosts cald vp with mighty spels,

Nor griefly vultures make vs once affeard:

Ne let th'unpleasant Quyre of Frogs still croking

Make vs to wish theyr choking.

Let none of these theyr drery accents 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.

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