by Henry Howard
HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY
(1516/1517-1547)
Contents
The Poetry of Surrey
BRIEF INTRODUCTION: HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY
The Poems
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Biography
HENRY HOWARD by Sidney Lee
© Delphi Classics 2013
Version 1
HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY
By Delphi Classics, 2013
NOTE
When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.
The Poetry of Surrey
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was reared at Windsor Castle with Henry VIII’s illegitimate son Henry FitzRoy and they became close friends.
The Curfew Tower of Windsor Castle, built under Henry III and so would have been familiar to the young Surrey
A plan of Windsor in the Renaissance period
BRIEF INTRODUCTION: HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY
One of the most influential poets of the Renaissance, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, along with Sir Thomas Wyatt, introduced into England the poetic styles and metres of the Italian humanist poets, laying the foundations of a great age of English poetry, which would later witness the crowning achievements of Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton.
Surrey was the eldest son of Lord Thomas Howard, receiving the courtesy title of Earl of Surrey in 1524 when his father succeeded as 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Due to his birth and connections, Surrey’s fate was to be often involved in the squabbling and dangerous machinations that plagued life in Henry VIII’s court. From 1530 until 1532, Surrey lived at Windsor with his father’s ward, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, who was the illegitimate son of the King and his teenage mistress Elizabeth Blount. In 1532, after talk of marriage with the princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Surrey married Lady Frances de Vere, the 14-year-old daughter of the Earl of Oxford, but they did not live together until 1535. She later bore him two children.
Surrey was first imprisoned at Windsor from 1537 to 1539 after being charged by the Seymours, who were then high in favour due to the King’s current marriage to Jane Seymour. They accused the poet of having secretly favoured the Roman Catholics in the rebellion of 1536, though he had in fact joined his father against the insurgents. In 1540 it is recorded that Surrey was a champion in court jousts and his prospects were further improved by the marriage of his cousin Catherine Howard to the King. He also served in the campaign in Scotland in 1542 and in France and Flanders from 1543 to 1546, before then acting as field marshal in 1545, though he was reprimanded for putting himself unnecessarily into danger.
On returning to England in 1546, Surrey found the king dying and his old enemies the Seymours furious with his interference in the projected alliance between his sister Mary and Sir Thomas Seymour, Jane’s brother. Unfortunately, Surrey made matters worse by his assertion that the Howards were the obvious regents for Prince Edward, Henry VIII’s son by Jane Seymour. Greatly concerned, the Seymours swiftly accused Surrey and his father of treason and called his sister, the Duchess of Richmond, to witness against him and she made the fatal admission that he was still a close adherent of the Roman Catholic faith. Since Surrey’s father, the Duke of Norfolk, had been considered heir apparent if the King had had no issue, the Seymours urged that the Howards were planning to set Prince Edward aside and usurp the throne. In vain Surrey defended himself and, at the age of thirty, he was executed on Tower Hill, while his father was only saved as the king had died before he could be executed.
The majority of Surrey’s surviving poetry was most likely written during his imprisonment at Windsor. Nearly all of the verses were first published in 1557, ten years after his death. Surrey highly revered the poetry of Wyatt, emulating him in the use of Italian forms in English verse, as well as translating a number of Petrarch’s sonnets. Unlike much of the English poetry of his time, Surrey’s works achieved a greater smoothness and firmness of expression, which qualities were to be important factors in the development of the English sonnet, inspiring Shakespeare to use the same form over fifty years later.
Surrey’s short poems concern typical early Tudor themes of love, religion, death, life in London and the joys of youth. Of particular note is Surrey’s translation of Books II and IV of Virgil’s Aeneid, which were published in 1557 as Certain Bokes of Virgiles Aenaeis, the first ever recorded use of blank verse in English literature.
Due to their revolutionary translations of Petrarch’s sonnets and the adoption of Italian poetic conventions, Surrey and his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt were the first English poets to promote the truly individual and respected identity of an English poet. Through his experimental use of rhyming metre and the division of stanzas into quatrains, Surrey helped shape for the first time a unique English form of poetry, paving the way for the imminent wonders of a golden era of Elizabethan literature.
Surrey’s father, the Duke of Norfolk, painted by Hans Holbein. Thomas Howard (1473–1554) was a prominent Tudor politician. He was uncle to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two of the wives of King Henry VIII, and played a major role in the machinations behind these marriages. A descendant of King Edward I, The Duke was also the great uncle of Queen Elizabeth I.
Surrey’s boyhood friend, Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset (1519–1536), was the son of King Henry VIII of England and Elizabeth Blount. FitzRoy was the only illegitimate offspring that Henry acknowledged.
The poet’s wife, Frances Howard, by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1535
CONTENTS
Songs and Sonnets
Description of the restless State of a Lover, with Suit to his Lady, to rue on his dying Heart
Description of Spring, wherein every thing renews, save only the Lover
Description of the restless State of a Lover
Description of the fickle Affections, Pangs, and Slights of Love
Complaint of a Lover that defied Love, and was by Love after the more tormented
Complaint of a Lover rebuked
Complaint of the Lover disdained
Description and Praise of his Love Geraldine
The Frailty and Hurtfulness of Beauty
A Complaint by Night of the Lover not beloved
How each thing, save the Lover in Spring, reviveth to Pleasure
A Vow to love faithfully, howsoever he be rewarded
Complaint that his Lady, after she knew his Love, kept her Face always hidden from him
Request to his Love to join Bounty with Beauty
Prisoned in Windsor, he recounteth his Pleasure there passed
The Lover comforteth himself with the Worthiness of his Love
Complaint of the Absence of her Lover being upon the Sea
Complaint of a dying Lover refused upon his Lady’s unjust mistaking of his Writing
Complaint of the Absence of her Lover, being upon the Sea
A Praise of his Love, wherein he reproveth them that compare their Ladies with his
To his Mistress
To the Lady that scorned her Lover
A Warning to the Lover, how he is abused by his Love
The forsaken Lover describeth and forsaketh Love
The Lover describeth his restless State
The Lover excuseth himself of suspected Change
A careless Man scorning and describing the subtle Usage of Women toward their Lovers
An Answer in the behalf of a Woman. Of an uncertain Author
The constant Lover lamen
teth
A Song written by the Earl of Surrey of a Lady that refused to dance with him
The faithful Lover declareth his Pains and his uncertain Joys, and with only Hope recomforteth somewhat his woful Heart
The Means to attain happy Life
Praise of mean and constant Estate
Praise of certain Psalms of David. Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder
Of the Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt
Of the Same
Of the Same
An Epitaph on Clere, Surrey’s faithful Friend and Follower
On Sardanapalus’s dishonourable Life and miserable Death
How no Age is content with his own Estate, and how the Age of Children is the happiest if they had Skill to understand it
Bonum est mihi quod humiliasti me
Exhortation to learn by others’ Trouble
The Fancy of a wearier Lover
A Satire against the Citizens of London
A description of the restless State of the Lover when absent from the Mistress of his Heart
Ecclesiastes
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
A Paraphrase of Some of the Psalms of David
Proem
Psalm LXXXVIII
Psalm LXXIII
Though, Lord, to Israel
Psalm LV
Psalm VIII
The Second Book of Virgil’s Æneid
The Fourth Book of Virgil’s Æneid
Other Verses
Primus. My fearful hope from me is fled
Secundus. Your fearful hope cannot prevail
Surrey, aged 29, 1546
Songs and Sonnets
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
Description of the restless State of a Lover, with Suit to his Lady, to rue on his dying Heart
THE SUN hath twice brought forth his tender green,
Twice clad the earth in lively lustiness;
Once have the winds the trees despoiled clean,
And once again begins their cruelness;
Since I have hid under ray breast the harm 5
That never shall recover healthfulness.
The winter’s hurt recovers with the warm;
The parched green restored is with shade;
What warmth, alas! may serve for to disarm
The frozen heart, that mine in flame hath made? 10
What cold again is able to restore
My fresh green years, that wither thus and fade?
Alas! I see nothing hath hurt so sore
But Time, in time, reduceth a return:
In time my harm increaseth more and more, 15
And seems to have my cure always in scorn.
Strange kinds of death in life that I do try!
At hand, to melt; far off in flame to burn.
And like as time list to my cure apply,
So doth each place my comfort clean refuse. 20
All thing alive, that seeth the heavens with eye,
With cloak of night, may cover, and excuse
It self from travail of the day’s unrest.
Save I, alas! against all others use,
That then stir up the torments of my breast; 25
And curse each star as causer of my fate.
And when the sun hath eke the dark opprest,
And brought the day, it doth nothing abate
The travails of mine endless smart and pain.
For then, as one that hath the light in hate, 30
I wish for night, more covertly to plain;
And me withdraw from every haunted place,
Lest by my chere my chance appear too plain.
And in my mind I measure pace by pace,
To seek the place where I myself had lost, 35
That day that I was tangled in the lace,
In seeming slack, that knitteth ever most.
But never yet the travail of my thought,
Of better state, could catch a cause to boast.
For if I found, some time that I have sought, 40
Those stars by whom I trusted of the port,
My sails do fall, and I advance right nought;
As anchor’d fast my spirits do all resort
To stand agazed, and sink in more and more
The deadly harm which she doth take in sport. 45
Lo! if I seek, how I do find my sore!
And if I flee, I carry with me still
The venom’d shaft, which doth his force restore
By haste of flight; and I may plain my till
Unto myself, unless this careful song 50
Print in your heart some parcel of my tene.
For I, alas! in silence all too long,
Of mine old hurt yet feel the wound but green.
Rue on my Life; or else your cruel wrong
Shall well appear, and by my death be seen. 55
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
Description of Spring, wherein every thing renews, save only the Lover
THE SOOTE season, that bud and bloom forth brings
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her make hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs, 5
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he slings;
The fishes flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale; 10
The busy bee her honey now she mings;
Winter is worn that was the flowers’ bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs!
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
Description of the restless State of a Lover
WHEN youth had led me half the race
That Cupid’s scourge had made me run;
I looked back to mete the place
From whence my weary course begun.
And then I saw how my desire 5
By guiding ill had lett the way:
Mine eyen, too greedy of their hire,
Had made me lose a better prey.
For when in sighs I spent the day,
And could not cloak my grief with game; 10
The boiling smoke did still bewray
The present heat of secret flame.
And when salt tears do bain my breast,
Where Love his pleasant trains hath sown;
Her beauty hath the fruits opprest, 15
Ere that the buds were sprung and blown.
And when mine eyen did still pursue
The flying chase of their request;
Their greedy looks did oft renew
The hidden wound within my breast. 20
When every look these cheeks might stain,
From deadly pale to glowing red;
By outward signs appeared plain,
To her for help my heart was fled.
But all too late Love learneth me 25
To paint all kind of colours new;
To blind their eyes that else should see
My speckled cheeks with Cupid’s hue.
And now the covert breast I claim,
That worshipp’d Cupid secretly; 30
And nourished his sacred flame,
From whence no blazing sparks do fly.
List of poems in chronological order
List of poems in alphabetical order
Description of the fickle Affections, Pangs, and Slights of Love
SUCH wayward ways hath Love, that most part in discord
Our wills do stand, whereby our hearts
but seldom do accord.
Deceit is his delight, and to beguile and mock
The simple hearts, which he doth strike with froward, diverse stroke.
He causeth the one to rage with golden burning dart; 5
And doth allay with leaden cold again the other’s heart.
Hot gleams of burning fire, and easy sparks of flame,
In balance of unequal weight he pondereth by aim.
From easy ford, where I might wade and pass full well,
He me withdraws, and doth me drive into a deep dark hell; 10
And me withholds where I am call’d and offer’d place,
And wills me that my mortal foe I do beseech of grace;
He lets me to pursue a conquest well near won,
To follow where my pains were lost, ere that my suit begun.
So by these means I know how soon a heart may turn 15
From war to peace, from truce to strife, and so again return.
I know how to content myself in others lust;
Of little stuff unto myself to weave a web of trust;
And how to hide my harms with soft dissembling chere,
When in my face the painted thoughts would outwardly appear. 20
I know how that the blood forsakes the face for dread;
And how by shame it stains again the cheeks with flaming red.
I know under the green, the serpent how he lurks;
The hammer of the restless forge I wot eke how it works.
I know, and can by rote the tale that I would tell; 25