It is strange that in spite of all the fame which "The Faerie Queene" gave the poet, it brought him neither wealth nor even work, and he "tourned back to his sheepe" in Ireland. He married, and poured out his joy in an exquisite song called "Epithalamion." Besides this, he wrote more books of his great work, many sonnets and hymns, and a treatise on Ireland. He was made Sheriff of Cork, and altogether his worldly affairs prospered; for Burleigh was dead, and it was Burleigh who had always checked the Queen's generosity towards him, "saying a song needed not such liberal payment." Suddenly a fresh and violent rebellion broke out in Ireland. Spenser's castle was attacked and set on fire; his little child was burned to death; and all his valued possessions were destroyed. He came back to London with his wife, homeless, penniless, broken-hearted. Over the next few months a veil is drawn; how it came to pass that his many friends and admirers knew nothing of his sufferings, or knowing did not raise a hand to help him, remains a mystery. This is certain, that he died of grief and for lack of bread in a street near Westminster. After his death, indeed, his friends came to the fore once more. The Earl of Essex paid all the expenses of his funeral, which took place in the Abbey. Poets and writers flocked to his grave-side, throwing on to his coffin their songs of woe. We may take it for granted that Shakespeare was among the mourners, and with him were all the brightest spirits of the day. Truly the broken-hearted poet was well honoured on that last event of his life. At some period of his career, probably near the end, he had written a poem on "Change and Mutabilitie." God grant that in those bitter closing days he found the ray of hope he thus did sing of:--
"Then gin I think on that which Nature sayd, Of that same time when no more Change shall be, But stedfast rest of all things firmly stayd, Upon the Pillars of Eternitie, That is contrayr to Mutabilitie. For all that moveth does in change delight: But thenceforth all shall rest eternally With Him, that is the God of Sabbaoth hight: O that great Sabbaoth God, grant me that Sabbaoth's sight."
True it is that Spenser, the herald of the Elizabethan day, gives to the Poets' Corner the reflected glory of that period, but we can never cease to regret that Shakespeare, its crown and its sun, lies so far away from Westminster. Only the Abbey seems a fitting monument to that great mind, our king of English literature.