100 
Behold, while she before the altar stands, 
Hearing the holy priest to her speakes, 
And blesseth her with his two happy hands ; 
How the red roses flush up in her cheekes, 
And the pure snow, with goodly vermill stayne, 
Like crimson dyde in grayne : 
That even the angels, which continually 
About the sacred altar do remaine, 
Forget their service and about her fly, 
Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fayre, 
The more they on it stare. 
But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground, 
Are governed with goodly modesty, 
That suffers not one look to glance awry, 
Which may let in a little thought unsound. 
Why blush ye, Love, to give to me your hand, 
The pledge of all our band ! 
Sing, ye sweet angels, Alleluja sing, 
That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring. 
That poem will worthily repay careful perusal, the rhythm 
throughout is perfect, the sentiment noble, and it shows how 
devoted and true and tender was Edmund Spenser to his wife, 
Elizabeth Boyle. Before the ‘ Epithalamion”’ was published 
there were troubles for Spenser, who had to fight in the law 
courts for every inch of his land. 
In 1595 Spenser came to London with three more books. 
«‘The Faerie Queene’ brought him a royal. pension of £50 a 
year from the niggardly minister of Queen Elizabeth, Lord 
Burleigh, not a clever, but a cunning man. After having that 
pension voted (whether he ever received any payment is doubtful), 
he returned to Ireland, and wrote one of the most beautiful of 
his poems—‘* Colin Clouts Come Home Again ”—+telling all he 
had seen and done at Court. 
In 1598 he was Sheriff of the Court, a somewhat uncongenial 
office, for in Spenser’s day it was not unfrequent for the Sheriff 
to have to hang people. It was before March, 1599, that his 
house was burnt over his head, and we see him in London, with 
no ready money. The story generally told is that he died of 
starvation. This is, probably, not strictly true. It is generally 
said that Lord Leicester sent him “‘ twenty pieces ’’ when he was 
dying, but Spenser sent them back, saying they had come too late. 
It would seem that the horror of the scenes through which he had 
gone with his children (one child being burnt to death), and a 
storm at sea, had acted on the poet’s sensitive mind and had 
broken his heart. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, and 
great pomp attended his funeral. His ashes had to wait twenty 
years before a monument was set up. 
He was the poet’s poet. Milton confessed that he himself was 
greatly indebted to Spenser, and praised him in one of his 
