The 'October' eclogue belongs to the stanzaic group, and consists of a
dialogue on the subject of poetry between the shepherds Piers and Cuddie.
It is one of the most imaginative of the series, and in it Spenser has
refashioned time-honoured themes with more conspicuous taste than
elsewhere. The old complaint for the neglect of poetry acquires new life
through the dramatic contrast of the two characters in which opposite
sides of the poetic temperament are revealed. In Cuddie we have a poet for
whom the prize is more than the praise[93], whose inspiration is cramped
because of the indifference of a worldly court and society. Things were
not always so--

But ah! Mecaenas is yclad in claye,
And great Augustus long ygoe is dead,
And all the worthies liggen wrapt in leade,
That matter made for Poets on to play.

And in the same strain he laments over what might have been his song:

Thou kenst not, Percie, howe the ryme should rage,
O! if my temples were distaind with wine,
And girt with girlonds of wild Yvie twine,
How I could reare the Muse on stately stage,
And teache her tread aloft in buskin fine,
With queint Bellona in her equipage!

Reading these words to-day they may well seem to us the charter of the new
age of England's song; and the effect is rendered all the more striking
by the rhythm of the last line with its prophecy of Marlowe and mighty
music to come. Piers, on the other hand, though with less poetic rage, is
a truer idealist, and approaches the high things of poetry more