ENGLISH LYRIC POETRY.

(1500-1700.)

JOHN SKELTON.

(1460?-1529.)

TO MISTRESS MARGERY WENTWORTH.

Skelton's slender but genuine lyric vein seems to have been obscured by the satirical tendency of most of his verse-writing. He is a genius manqué, but a genius, and may fitly be put first in point of time among modern representatives of English lyric poetry. His works are accessible in the second volume of Chalmers' edition of Johnson's English Poets (1810), and in a separate edition by Dyce (1843).

WITH marjoram gentle,

The flower of goodlyhede1,
Embroidered the mantle
Is of your maidenhede.
Plainly I can not glose2;

Ye be, as I divine,
The pretty primrose,
The goodly columbine.
With marjoram gentle,
The flower of goodlyhede,
Embroidered the mantle
Is of your maidenhede.

Benign, courteise, and meke,
With wordes well devised,

With marjoram gentle,
The flower of goodlyhede,
Embroidered the mantle
Is of your maidenhede.

TO MISTRESS ISABEL PENNELL.

Y maiden Isabel,

MY

Reflaring1 rosabel,

The flagrant2 cammamel,
The ruddy rosary,
The sovereign rosemary,
The pretty strawberry,

The columbine, the nept3,

The jeloffer well set,
The proper violet.

Ennewed 5 your colouer
Is like the daisy flower,
After the April shower.

Star of the morrow gray,
The blossom on the spray,
The freshest flower of May.
Maidenly demure,

Of womanhede the lure,
Wherfore I make you sure,
It were an heauenly health,
It were an endless wealth,
A life for God himself,

To hear this nightingale
Among the birdes smale,
Warbeling in the vale,
Dug, dug, jug, jug,

Good year and good luck,

With chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck!

2 i.e. fragrant. 3 catmint. • gilliflower. • Renewed

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY.

(1517-1547.)

DESCRIPTION OF SPRING.

(WHEREIN EACH THING RENEWS, SAVE ONLY THE LOVER.)

The selections from Surrey and Wyatt, with two exceptions, appeared first in the volume usually known as Tottel's Miscellany (1557). This was the first of the Elizabethan miscellanies, and a great landmark in the new poetry. Selections from most of the others, such as England's Helicon and Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, will be found on subsequent pages of the present volume. Both of the latter works may be read in the modern editions of Mr. Bullen. Tottel's Miscellany is included in Professor Arber's series of "English Reprints". The contributors include most of the poets of the time. The sonnet and the song are represented in these collections, but the pastoral note, at least in the later ones, seems to predominate. The poems in Tottel's Miscellany, written mostly 1527-1557, are partly in the amatory vein, imitative of Italian models, and partly in the native manner, didactic, reflective, and elegiac. There are separate modern editions of Surrey and Wyatt, and both are included in Chalmers' English Poets.

THE soote1 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 mate hath told her tale;
Summer is come, for every spray now springs,
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;
The fishes float with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale2;
The busy bee her honey now she mings3;
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.

And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.
3 mingles.

1 sweet.

2 small.

DESCRIPTION AND PRAISE OF HIS LOVE GERALDINE.

ROM Tuscane came my lady's worthy race;

FROM

Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seate; The western isle, whose pleasant shore doth face Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat1: Foster'd she was with milk of Irish breast; Her sire, an Earl; her dame of princes' blood: From tender years, in Britain she doth rest With kinges childe, where she tasteth costly food. Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyen; Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight: Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine; And Windsor, alas, doth chase me from her sight. Her beauty of kind2, her virtues from above; Happy is he that can obtain her love!

COMPLAINT OF A LOVER REBUKED.

LOVE that liveth and reigneth in my thought,
That built his seat within my captive breast,
Clad in the arms, wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
She, that me taught to love, and suffer pain,
My doubtfull hope, and eke my hot desire
With shamefast cloak to shadow and refrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
And coward Love then to the heart apace
Taketh his flight, whereas he lurks, and plains
His purpose lost, and dare not shew his face.
For my lordes gilt thus faultless bide I pains,
Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is his death, that takes his end by love.
1 the warmth of life.

2 nature.

3 where.