This poem is not narrative, but elegiac, meaning that it is an abstract representation of the poem's themes rather than a story. As such, it does not have a setting in the traditional sense of being a location where the poem's events take place. However, it is significantly concerned with place as a theme and motif throughout the poem. The poem is set, in that sense, in England under Elizabeth's rule. Certainly, the poem is very much about the queen's relationship with her domain, and with the virtues that her rule creates in England: increasing its status among European nations, and allowing the arts to fully flourish.