England. War, misery, poverty were abroad in all the land. Yet
amid the horrid sights and sounds of battle Spenser found time to
write.

After eight years spent in the north of Ireland, Spenser was
given a post which took him south. His new home was the old
castle of Kilcolman in Cork. It was surrounded by fair wooded
country, but to Spenser it seemed a desert. He had gone to
Ireland as to exile, hoping that it was merely a stepping-stone
to some great appointment in England, whither he longed to
return. Now after eight years he found himself still in exile.
He had no love for Ireland, and felt himself lonely and forsaken
there. But soon there came another great Elizabethan to share
his loneliness. This was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, being out of
favor with his Queen, took refuge in his Irish estates until her
anger should pass.

The two great men, thus alone among the wild Irish, made friends,
and they had many a talk together. There within the gray stone
walls of the old ivy-covered castle Spenser read the first part
of his book, the Faery Queen, to Raleigh. Spenser had long been
at work upon this great poem. It was divided into parts, and
each part was called a book. Three books were now finished, and
Raleigh, loud in his praises of them, persuaded the poet to bring
them over to England to have them published.

In a poem called Colin Clout's come home again, which Spenser
wrote a few years later, he tells in his own poetic way of these
meetings and talks, and of how Raleigh persuaded him to go to
England, there to publish his poem. In Colin Clout Spenser calls