Edmund Spenser

The fields around Kilcolman Castle evergreen
And here poet Spenser wrote his Faerie Queen
A masterpiece from the sixteenth century
And as a writer few as great as he.

In Ireland by the British monarch he was given a huge estate
In Fermoy in County Cork and the renowned literary great
There composed his great poem that still lives on today
Time is the test of greatness many say.

But in other ways Spenser left himself down
His loyalty alone was to the crown
And as a humanitarian he will never rate
As his feelings for the Irish people were bordering on hate.

But the Irish rebels ran him out of Ireland
And their hatred for him not hard to understand
He had treated the Irish as an inferior race
And Ireland for him became an unsafe place.

At forty seven years he had written his last line
On the year of his death at home in London in fifteen ninety nine
He did not last that long beyond his prime
One of the finest English writers of his time.

The fields around Kilcolman Castle evergreen
Where Edmund Spenser wrote his Faerie Queen
Of his time he was a poetic great
But as a humanitarian he doesn't even rate.