One day, he tells them, as he sat

Under the foote of Mole, that mountaine hore,
Keeping my sheepe amongst the cooly shade
Of the greene alders by the Mullaes shore,

a strange shepherd, who styled himself the Shepherd of
the Ocean --

Whether allured with my pipes delight,
Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,
Or thither led by chaunce, I know not right --

found him out, and

Provoked me to plaie some pleasant fit.

He sang, he tells us, a song of Mulla old father Mole's
daughter, and of another river called Bregog who loved
her. Then his guest sang in turn:--

His song was all a lamentable lay
Of great unkindnesse and of usage hard,
Of Cynthia the ladie of the sea,
Which from her presence faultlesse him debard,
And ever and anon, with singults rife,
He cryed out, to make his undersong:
Ah! my loves queene and goddesse of my life,
Who shall me pittie when thou doest me wrong?

After they had made an end of singing, the shepherd of
the ocean

Gan to cast great lyking to my lore,
And great dislyking to my lucklesse lot
That banisht had my selfe, like wight forlore,
Into that waste where I was quite forgot,

and presently persuaded him to accompany him 'his
Cinthia to see.'

It has been seen from one of Harvey's letters that
the _Faerie Queene_ was already begun in 1580; and from
what Bryskett says, and what Spenser says himself in
his sonnets to Lord Grey, and to Lord Ormond, that it
was proceeded with after the poet had passed over to
Ireland. By the close of the year 1589 at least three
books were completely finished. Probably enough parts
of other books had been written; but only three were
entirely ready for publication. No doubt part of the
conversation that passed between Spenser and Raleigh
related to Spenser's work. It may be believed that
what was finished was submitted to Raleigh's judgment,
and certainly concluded that it elicited his warmest
approval.{8} One great object that Spenser proposed to
himself when he assented to Raleigh's persuasion to
visit England, was the publication of the first three
books of his _Faerie Queene_.

Footnotes
---------

{1} One might quote of these poets, and those of a like
spirit, Wordsworth's lines on 'the Characteristics
of a Child three years old,' for in the respect
therein