most level with
the ground, and was situated on the north side of a
fine lake, in the midst of a vast plain, terminated to
the east by the county of Waterford mountains; Bally-
howra hills to the north, or, as Spenser terms them,
the mountains of Mole, Nagle mountains to the south,
and the mountains of Kerry to the west. It commanded a
view of above half the breadth of Ireland; and must
have been, when the adjacent uplands were wooded, a
most pleasant and romantic situation; from whence, no
doubt, Spenser drew several parts of the scenery of his
poem.'

Here, then, as in some cool sequestered vale of
life, for some ten years, his visits to England
excepted, lived Spenser still singing sweetly, still,
as he might say, piping, with the woods answering him
and his echo ringing. Sitting in the shade he would
play many a 'pleasant fit;' he would sing

Some hymne or morall laie,
Or carol made to praise his loved lasse;

he would see in the rivers that flowed around his tower
beings who lived and loved, and would sing of their
mutual passions. It must have sounded strangely to
hear the notes of his sweet voice welling forth from
his old ruin--to hear music so subtle and refined
issuing from that scarred and broken relic of past
turbulencies --

The shepheard swaines that did about him play
. . . with greedie listfull eares
Did stand astonisht at his curious skill
Like hartlesse deare, dismayed with thunders sound.

He presents a picture such as would have delighted his
own fancy, though perhaps the actual experience may not
have been unalloyed with pain. It is a picture which
in many ways resembles that presented by one of kindred
type of genius, who has already been mentioned as of
affinity with him--by Wordsworth. Wordsworth too sang
in a certain sense from the shade, far away from the
vanity of courts, and the uproar of cities; sang 'from
a still place, remote from men;' sang, like his own
Highland girl, all alone with the 'vale profound'
'overflowing with the sound;' finding, too, objects of
friendship and love in the forms of nature which
surrounded his tranquil home.

Of these two poets in their various lonelinesses
one may perhaps quote those exquisite lines written by
one of them of a somewhat differently caused isolation:
each one of them too lacked

Not friends for simple glee
Nor yet for higher sympathy.
To his side the fallow