Selected Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, Dennis Keene

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000158571
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book is a collection of selected poems of Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, who is revealed as subtle and graceful poet and a translator whose vigorous and faithful versions of the Aeneid continue to enrich the literary tradition.

Poems

16

Give place, yelovers, here before
That spent your boasts and brags in vain;
My lady's beauty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well sayen,
Than doth the sun the candle light, 5
Or brightest day the darkest night.
And therefore hath a troth as just
As had Penelope the fair,
For what she sayeth ye may it trust
As it by writing sealéd were, 10
And virtues hath she many moe
Than I with pen have skill to show.
I could rehearse, if that I would,
The whole effect of Nature's plaint,
When she had lost the perfect mould, 15
The like to whom she could not paint;
With wringing hands how she did cry,
And what she said, I know it, I.
I know she swore with raging mind,
Her kingdom only set apart, 20
There was no loss by law of kind
That could have gone so near her heart.
And this was chiefly all her pain,
She could not make the like again.
Sith Nature thus gave her the praise 25
To be the chiefest work she wrought,
In faith, methink some better ways
On your behalf might well be sought,

Than to compare, as ye have done,
To match the candle with the sun. 30

17

When Windsor walls sustained my wearied arm,
My hand my chin, to ease my restless head,
Each pleasant spot revested green with warm,
The blossomed boughs with lusty Ver yspread,
The flowered meads, the wedded birds so late, 5
Mine eyes discovered. Then did to mind resort
The jolly woes, the hateless short debate,
The rakehell life that' longs to love's disport.
Wherewith, alas, mine heavy charge of care
Heaped in my breast breaks forth against my will, 10
And smoky sighs that overcast the air.
My vapoured eyes such dreary tears distil
The tender spring to quicken where they fall,
And I half bent to throw me down withal.

18

So cruel a prison how could betide, alas,
As proud Windsor, where I, in lust and joy,
With a king's son my childish years did pass,
In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy.
Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour. 5
The large green courts, where we were wont to hove,
With eyes cast up unto the maidens' tower,
And easy sighs, such as folk draw in love.
The stately sales; the ladies bright of hue,
The dances short, long tales of great delight, 10
With words and looks that tigers could but rue,
Where each of us did plead the other's right.

The palm play, where, despoiléd for the game,
With dazed eyes of t we by gleams of love
Have missed the ball and got sight of our dame, 15
To bait her eyes which kept the leads above.
The gravelled ground, with sleeves tied on the helm,
On foaming horse, with swords and friendly hearts,
With cheer as though the one should overwhelm,
Where we have fought and chaséd oft with darts. 20
With silver drops the meads yet spread for ruth,
In active games of nimbleriess and strength
Where we did strain, trailed by swarms of youth,
Our tender limbs, that yet shot up in length.
The secret groves, which oft we made resound 25
Of pleasant plaint and of our ladies' praise,
Recording soft what grace each one had found,
What hope of speed, what dread of long delays.
The wild forest, the clothed holts with green,
With reins availed and swift ybreathed horse, 30
With cry of hounds and merry blasts between,
Where we did chase the fearful hart a force.
The void walls eke, that harboured us each night;
Wherewith, alas, revive within my breast
The sweet accord, such sleeps as yet delight, 35
The pleasant dreams, the quiet bed of rest,
The secret thoughts imparted with such trust,
The wanton talk, the diverse change of play,
The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just,
Wherewith we passed the winter nights a way. 40

And with this thought the blood forsakes my face,
The tears berain my cheek of deadly hue;
The which, as soon as sobbing sighs, alas,
Upsupped have, thus I my plaint renew:
'O place of bliss, renewer of my woes, 45
Give me accompt where is my noble fere,
Whom in thy walls thou didst each night enclose,
To other lief, but unto me most dear.'
Each stone, alas, that doth my sorrow rue,
Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint. 50
Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
In prison pine with bondage and restraint,
And with remembrance of the greater grief,
To banish the less I find my chief relief.

19

From Tuscan came my lady's worthy race;
Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat;
The western isle, whose pleasant shore doth face
Wild Cambria's cliffs, did give her lively heat.
Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast; 5
Her sire an earl, her dame of prince's blood;
From tender years in Britain she doth rest,
With a king's child, where she tastes ghostly food.
Hunsdon did first present her to my eyen:
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight: 10
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine,
And Windsor, alas, doth chase me from her sight
Beauty of kind, her virtues from above;
Happy is he that may obtain her love.

20

Though I regarded not
The promise made by me,
Or passéd not to spot
My faith and honesty,
Yet were my fancy strange 5
And wilful will to wite,
If I sought now to change
A falcon for a kite.
All men might well dispraise
My wit and enterprise, 10
If I esteemed a pease
Above a pearl in price,
Or judged the owlin sight
The sparhawk to excel,
Which flieth but in the night 15
As all men know right well;
Or, if I sought to sail
Into the brittle port,
Where anchor hold doth fail
To such as do resort, 20
And leave the haven sure
Where blows no blustering wind,
Nor fickleness in ure,
So far forth as I find.
No, think me not so light 25
Nor of so churlish kind,
Though it lay in my might
My bondage to unbind,
That I would leave the hind
To hunt the gander's foe. 30
No, no, I have no mind
To make exchanges so,

Nor yet to change at all:
For think it may not be
That I should seek to fall 35
From my felicity,
Desirous for to win,
And loath for to forgo,
Or new change to begin
How may all this be so? 40
The fire it cannot freeze,
For it is not his kind,
Nor true love cannot lese
The constance of the mind;
Yet, as soon shall the fire 45
Want heat to blaze and burn,
As I in such desire
Have once a thought to turn.

21

Wrapped in my careless cloak, as I walk to and fro,
I see how love can show what force there reigneth in his bow;
And how he shooteth eke a hardy heart to wound;
And where he glanceth by again, that little hurt is found.
For seldom it is seen he woundeth hearts alike; 5
The one may rage when t'other's love is often far to seek.
All this I see, with more; and wonder thinketh me
How he can strike the one so sore, and leave the other free.
I see that wounded wight that suffreth all this wrong,
How he is fed with yeas and nays, and liveth all too long. 10
In silence though I keep such secrets to myself,
Yet do I see how she sometimes doth yield a look by stealth,
As though it seemed, 'Iwis, I will not lose thee so,'
When in her heart so sweet a thought did never truly grow.
Then say I thus: 'Alas, that man is far from bliss 15
That doth receive for his relief none other gain but this.

And she that feeds him so, I feel and find it plain,
Is but to glory in her power, that over such can reign.
Nor are such graces spent but when she thinks that he,
A wearied man, is fully bent such fancies to let free. 20
Then to retain him still, she wrasteth new her grace,
And smileth, lo, as though she would forthwith the man
embrace.
But when the proof is made to try such looks withal,
He findeth then the place all void, and freighted full of gall.
Lord, what abuse is this! Who can such women praise 25
That for their glory do devise to use such crafty ways?
I that among the rest do sit and mark the row,
Find that in her is greater craft than is in twenty moe.
When tender years, alas, with wiles so well are sped,
What will she do when hoary hairs are powdered in her
head?' 30

22

Girt in my guiltless gown, as I sit here and sew,
I see that things are not indeed as to the outward show.
And whoso list to look and note things somewhat near,
Shall find, where plainness seems to haunt, nothing but craft
appear.
For with indifferent eyes myself can well discern 5
How some to guide a ship in storms stick not to take the stern;
Whose skill and cunning tried in calm to steer a barge,
They would soon show, you should soon see, it were too great
a charge.
And some I see again sit still and say but small
That can do ten times more than they say they can do at all. 10
Whose goodly gifts are such, the more they understand,
The more they seek to learn and know and take less charge in
hand.
And to declare more plain, the time flits not so fast
But I can bear right well in mind the song now sung and past.

The author whereof came, wrapped in a crafty cloak, 15
In will to force a flaming fire where he could raise no smoke.
If power and will had met, as it appeareth plain,
The truth nor right had ta'en no place, their virtues had been
vain.
So that you may perceive, and I may safely see,
The innocent that guiltless is condemnéd should have be. 20
Much like untruth to this the story did declare,
Where th'elders laid to Susan's charge meet matter to compare.
They did her both accuse and ek...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Half Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Textual and bibliographical note
• Virgil's Aeneid
• From the Italian
• Poems
• LAST POEMS
• Notes