by Henry Howard
(As sick men in their shaking fits procure themselves to sweat)
With thoughts, that for the time do much appease my pain:
But yet they cause a farther fear, and breed my woe again.
Methink within my thought I see right plain appear
My heart’s delight, my sorrow’s leech, mine earthly goddess here, 30
With every sundry grace, that I have seen her have:
Thus I within my woful breast her picture paint and grave.
And in my thought I roll her beauties to and fro;
Her laughing chere, her lively look, my heart that pierced so.
Her strangeness when I sued her servant for to be; 35
And what she said, and how she smiled, when that she pitied me.
Then comes a sudden fear that reaveth all my rest,
Lest absence cause forgetfulness to sink within her breast.
For when I think how far this earth doth us divide,
Alas! me-seems love throws me down; I feel how that I slide. 40
But then I think again, ‘Why should I thus mistrust
So sweet a wight, so sad and wise, that is so true and just?
For loath she was to love, and wavering is she not;
The farther off the more desired.’ Thus lovers tie their knot.
So in despair and hope plung’d am I both up and down, 45
As is the ship with wind and wave, when Neptune list to frown:
But as the watery showers delay the raging wind,
So doth Good-hope clean put away despair out of my mind;
And bids me for to serve, and suffer patiently:
For what wot I the after weal that fortune wills to me. 50
For those that care do know, and tasted have of trouble,
When passed is their woful pain, each joy shall seem them double.
And bitter sends she now, to make me taste the better
The pleasant sweet, when that it comes, to make it seem the sweeter.
And so determine I to serve until my breath; 55
Yea, rather die a thousand times, than once to false my faith.
And if my feeble corpse, through weight of woful smart
Do fail, or faint, my will it is that still she keep my heart.
And when this carcass here to earth shall be refar’d,
I do bequeath my wearied ghost to serve her afterward. 60
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The Means to attain happy Life
MARTIAL, the things that do attain
The happy life, be these, I find:
The riches left, not got with pain;
The fruitful ground, the quiet mind:
The equal friend, no grudge, no strife; 5
No charge of rule, nor governance;
Without disease, the healthful life;
The household of continuance:
The mean diet, no delicate fare;
True wisdom join’d with simpleness; 10
The night discharged of all care,
Where wine the wit may not oppress:
The faithful wife, without debate;
Such sleeps as may beguile the night.
Contented with thine own estate; 15
Ne wish for Death, ne fear his might.
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Praise of mean and constant Estate
OF thy life, Thomas, this compass well mark:
Not aye with full sails the high seas to beat;
Ne by coward dread, in shunning storms dark,
On shallow shores thy keel in peril freat.
Whoso gladly halseth the golden mean, 5
Void of dangers advisedly hath his home;
Not with loathsome muck as a den unclean,
Nor palace like, whereat disdain may glome.
The lofty pine the great wind often rives;
With violenter sway fallen turrets steep; 10
Lightnings assault the high mountains and clives.
A heart well stay’d, in overthwartes deep.
Hopeth amends; in sweet, doth fear the sour.
God that sendeth, withdraweth winter sharp.
Now ill, not aye thus; once Phœbus to low’r, 15
With bow unbent, shall cease; and frame to harp.
His voice in strait estate appear thou stout;
And so wisely, when lucky gale of wind
All thy puft sails shall fill, look well about;
Take in a reef: haste is waste, proof doth find. 20
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Praise of certain Psalms of David. Translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder
THE GREAT Macedon, that out of Persia chased
Darius, of whose huge power all Asia rung;
In the rich ark Dan Homer’s rhymes he placed,
Who feigned gests of heathen princes sung.
What holy grave, what worthy sepulture, 5
To Wyatt’s Psalms should Christians then purchase?
Where he doth paint the lively faith, and pure,
The steadfast hope, the sweet return to grace,
Of just David, by perfect penitence;
Where Rulers may see in a mirror clear, 10
The bitter fruit of false concupiscence;
How Jewry bought Urias’ death full dear.
In Princes’ hearts God’s scourge imprinted deep,
Ought them awake out of their sinful sleep.
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Of the Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt
DIVERS thy death do diversely bemoan:
Some, that in presence of thy livelihed
Lurked, whose breasts envy with hate had swoln,
Yield Cæsar’s tears upon Pompeius’ head.
Some, that watched with the murd’rer’s knife, 5
With eager thirst to drink thy guiltless blood,
Whose practice brake by happy end of life,
With envious tears to hear thy fame so good.
But I, that knew what harbour’d in that head;
What virtues rare were tempered in that breast, 10
Honour the place that such a jewel bred,
And kiss the ground whereas the corpse doth rest;
With vapour’d eyes: from whence such streams availe,
As Pyramus did on Thisbe’s breast bewail.
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Of the Same
WYATT resteth here, that quick could never rest:
Whose heavenly gifts increased by disdain;
And virtue sank the deeper in his breast:
Such profit he by envy could obtain.
A head, where wisdom mysteries did frame; 5
Whose hammers beat still in that lively brain,
As on a stithe, where that some work of fame
Was daily wrought, to turn to Britain’s gain.
A visage stern, and mild; where both did grow
Vice to contemn, in virtue to rejoice: 10
Amid great storms, whom grace assured so,
To live upright, and smile at fortune’s choice.
A hand, that taught what might be said in rhyme;
That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit.
A mark, the which (unperfected for time) 15
Some may approach, but never none shall hit.
A tongue that serv’d in foreign realms his king;
Whose courteous talk to virtue did inflame
Each noble heart; a worthy guide to bring
Our English youth by travail unto fame. 20
An eye, whose judgment none effect could blind,
Friends to allure, and foes to reconcile;
Whose piercing look did represent a mind
With virtue
fraught, reposed, void of guile.
A heart, where dread was never so imprest 25
To hide the thought that might the truth advance;
In neither fortune loft, nor yet represt,
To swell in wealth, or yield unto mischance.
A valiant corpse, where force and beauty met:
Happy, alas! too happy, but for foes, 30
Lived, and ran the race that nature set;
Of manhood’s shape, where she the mould did lose.
But to the heavens that simple soul is fled,
Which left, with such as covet Christ to know,
Witness of faith, that never shall be dead; 35
Sent for our health, but not received so.
Thus for our guilt this jewel have we lost;
The earth his bones, the heavens possess his ghost.
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Of the Same
IN the rude age, when knowledge was not rife,
If Jove in Crete, and other were that taught
Arts, to convert to profit of our life,
Wend after death to have their temples sought:
If, Virtue yet no void unthankful time 5
Failed of some to blast her endless fame;
(A goodly mean both to deter from crime,
And to her steps our sequel to inflame)
In days of truth if Wyatt’s friends then wail
(The only debt that dead of quick may claim) 10
That rare wit spent, employ’d to our avail,
Where Christ is taught, we led to Virtue’s train.
His lively face their breasts how did it freat,
Whose cinders yet with envy they do eat.
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An Epitaph on Clere, Surrey’s faithful Friend and Follower
NORFOLK sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee dead;
Clere, of the Count of Cleremont, thou hight
Within the womb of Ormond’s race thou bred,
And saw’st thy cousin crowned in thy sight.
Shelton for love, Surrey for lord thou chase; 5
(Aye, me! whilst life did last that league was tender)
Tracing whose steps thou sawest Kelsal blaze,
Landrecy burnt, and batter’d Boulogne render.
At Montreuil gates, hopeless of all recure,
Thine Earl, half dead, gave in thy hand his will; 10
Which cause did thee this pining death procure,
Ere summers four times seven thou couldst fulfill.
Ah! Clere! if love had booted, care, or cost,
Heaven had not won, nor earth so timely lost.
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On Sardanapalus’s dishonourable Life and miserable Death
TH’ Assyrian king, in peace, with foul desire
And filthy lusts that stain’d his regal heart;
In war, that should set princely hearts on fire,
Did yield vanquisht for want of martial art.
The dint of swords from kisses seemed strange; 5
And harder than his lady’s side, his targe:
From glutton feasts to soldier’s fare, a change;
His helmet, far above a garland’s charge:
Who scarce the name of manhood did retain,
Drenched in sloth and womanish delight. 10
Feeble of spirit, impatient of pain,
When he had lost his honour, and his right,
(Proud time of wealth, in storms appalled with dread,)
Murder’d himself, to shew some manful deed.
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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
LAID in my quiet bed, in study as I were,
I saw within my troubled head a heap of thoughts appear.
And every thought did shew so lively in mine eyes,
That now I sigh’d, and then I smiled, as cause of thought did rise.
I saw the little boy in thought how oft that he 5
Did wish of God to scape the rod, a tall young man to be.
The young man eke that feels his bones with pains opprest,
How he would be a rich old man, to live and lie at rest.
The rich old man that sees his end draw on so sore,
How he would be a boy again, to live so much the more. 10
Whereat full oft I smiled, to see how all these three,
From boy to man, from man to boy, would chop and change degree.
And musing thus I think, the case is very strange,
That man from wealth, to live in woe, doth ever seek to change.
Thus thoughtful as I lay, I saw my wither’d skin, 15
How it doth shew my dented chews, the flesh was worn so thin.
And eke my toothless chaps, the gates of my right way,
That opes and shuts as I do speak, do thus unto me say:
‘Thy white and hoarish hairs, the messengers of age,
That shew, like lines of true belief, that this life doth assuage; 20
Bid thee lay hand, and feel them hanging on thy chin;
The which do write two ages past, the third now coming in.
Hang up therefore the bit of thy young wanton time:
And thou that therein beaten art, the happiest life define.’
Whereat I sigh’d, and said: ‘Farewell! my wonted joy; 25
Truss up thy pack, and trudge from me to every little boy;
And tell them thus from me; their time most happy is,
If, to their time, they reason had, to know the truth of this.’
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Bonum est mihi quod humiliasti me
THE STORMS are past; the clouds are overblown;
And humble chere great rigour hath represt.
For the default is set a pain foreknown;
And patience graft in a determined breast.
And in the heart, where heaps of griefs were grown, 5
The sweet revenge hath planted mirth and rest.
No company so pleasant as mine own.
. . . . . . . .
Thraldom at large hath made this prison free.
Danger well past, remembered, works delight.
Of ling’ring doubts such hope is sprung, pardie! 10
That nought I find displeasant in my sight,
But when my glass presented unto me
The cureless wound that bleedeth day and night.
To think, alas! such hap should granted be
Unto a wretch, that hath no heart to fight, 15
To spill that blood, that hath so oft been shed,
For Britain’s sake, alas! and now is dead!
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Exhortation to learn by others’ Trouble
MY Ratclif, when thy rechless youth offends,
Receive thy scourge by others’ chastisement;
For such calling, when it works none amends,
Then plagues are sent without advertisement.
Yet Solomon said, the wronged shall recure: 5
But Wyatt said true; ‘The scar doth aye endure.’
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The Fancy of a wearier Lover
THE FANCY, which that I have served long;
That hath alway been enemy to mine ease;
Seemed of late to rue upon my wrong,
And bade me fly the cause of my misease.
And I forthwith did press out of the throng, 5
That thought by flight my painful heart to please
Some other way, till I saw faith more strong;
And to myself I said, ‘Alas! those, days
In vain were spent, to run the race so long.’
And with that thought I met my guide, that plain, 10
Out of the way wherein I wander’d wrong,
Brought me amidst the hills in base Bullayne:
Where I am now, as restless to remain
Against my will, full pleased with my pain.
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A Satire against the Citizens of London
LONDON! hast thou accused me
Of breach of laws? the root of strife!
Within whose breast did boil to see,
So fervent hot, thy dissolute life;
That even the hate of sins, that grow 5
Within thy wicked walls so rife,
For to break forth did convert so,
That terror could it not repress.
The which, by words, since preachers know
What hope is left for to redress, 10
By unknown means it liked me
My hidden burthen to express.
Whereby it might appear to thee
That secret sin hath secret spite;
From justice’ rod no fault is free 15
But that all such as work unright
In most quiet, are next ill rest.
In secret silence of the night
This made me, with a rechless breast,
To wake thy sluggards with my bow: 20
A figure of the Lord’s behest;
Whose scourge for sin the Scriptures shew.
That as the fearful thunder’s clap
By sudden flame at hand we know;
Of pebble stones the soundless rap, 25
The dreadful plague might make thee see