Sixteenth-Century Poetry

Gordon Braden is Professor of English at the University of Virginia. His previous publications include The Classics and English Renaissance Poetry (1978), Renaissance Tragedy and the Senecan Tradition (1985), The Idea of the Renaissance (1989), and Petrarchan Love and the Continental Renaissance (1999).

• Selected Contents by Theme. Alphabetical list of authors.Chronology of Poems and Historical Events.Introduction.Anonymous.“Western wind, when will thou blow,”.“In a goodly night, as in my bed I lay”.“O lusty lily, the lantern of all gentleness,”.John Skelton (1460?-1529).“Skelton laureate…”.From Divers Ballads and Ditties Solacious.“The ancient acquaintance, madam, between us twain”.Philip Sparrow.FromGarland or Chaplet of Laurel.Sir Thomas More (1477-1535).Louis, the Lost Lover.Henry VIII (1491-1547).“Pastime with good company”.Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42).“What vaileth truth, or by it to take pain?”.translation of Canzoniere 140.adaptation of Canzoniere 190.“Each man me telleth I change most my device”.translation of Canzoniere 224.“Farewell, love, and all thy laws forever”.“It may be good, like it who list,”.translation of Canzoniere 134.translation of Canzoniere 189.translation of an Italian madrigal by Dragonetto Bonifacio.Answer.“Ye old mule, that think yourself so fair,”.“They flee from me that sometime did me seek,”.The lover showeth how he is forsaken of such as he sometime enjoyed.“There was never nothing more me pained”.“Who hath heard of such cruelty before?”.“If Fancy would favor”.“Sometime I fled the fire that me brent”.“My lute, awake! Perform the last”.“To cause accord or to agree”.“Unstable dream, according to the place,”.“You that in love find luck and abundance”.“If waker care, if sudden pale color,”.“Tagus, farewell, that westward with thy streams”.“Mine own John Poins, since ye delight to know”.“My mother’s maids, when they did sew and spin,”.V. innocentia/Veritas Viat Fides/Circumdederunt me inimici mei.“It was my choice, it was no chance”.“Blame not my lute, for he must sound”.“What should I say,”.Adaptation of Canzoniere 269.Translation of Thyestes 391-403.“Lucks, my fair falcon, and your fellows all”.“Sighs are my food, drink are my tears”.Thomas Vaux, Baron Vaux (1510-56).“Brittle beauty that nature made so frail,”.“I loathe that I did love”.Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47).“From Tuscan came my lady’s worthy race;”.translation of Canzoniere 140.Imitation of Canzoniere 310.Adaptation of Canzoniere 164.Version of Canzoniere 145.“In Cyprus’s springs (whereas dame Venus dwelt).“Such wayward ways hath Love that most part in discord”.“Although I had a check”.“When Windsor walls sustained my wearied arm,”.“So cruel prison, how could betide, alas,”.“The Assyrians’ king, in peace with foul desire”.“London, has thou accusèd me”.“Divers thy death do diversely bemoan”.“Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest;”.“O happy dames that may embrace”.“My Radcliffe, when thy reckless youth offends,”.Anne Askew (1521-46).The ballad which Anne Askew made and sang when she was in Newgate..Psalm 130.Sir Thomas Wyatt.The Geneva Bible.William Whittingham.George Gascoigne.Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke.Sir John Harington.George Gascoigne (1525?-77).From The Hundred Sundry Flowers (1).From The Hundred Sundry Flowers (2).Gascoigne’s Passion.Gascoigne’s Praise of his Mistress.Gascoigne’s Lullaby.Sat cito si sat bene.Gascoigne’s Good Morrow.Gascoigne’s Good Night.Gascoigne’s Woodmanship.From The Posies.The Complaint of the Green Knight.The Continuance of the Author, upon the Fruit of Fetters.The Green Knight’s Farewell to Fancy.Epilogismus..Elizabeth I (1533-1603).“The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,”.On Monsier’s Departure..Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset (1536-1608).A Mirror for Magistrates: The Induction..Barnabe Googe (1540-94) and George Turberville (1544?-97?).Oculi augent dolorem/Out of sight, out of mind.To Master Googe, his sonnet Out of sight, out of thought.Of Money.To Master Googe’s fancy that begins, Give money me, take friendship whoso list..Sir Edward Dyer (1543-1606).“My mind to me a kingdom is;”.Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford (1550-1604).“If women could be fair and yet not fond,”.Edmund Spenser (1552?-99).The Third book of the Faery Queen.Cantos I–XII.Alternate ending for Canto XII from the 1590 edition.Two Cantos of Mutability.Canto VI.Canto VII.From Amoretti.6.10.35.37.45.56.64.67.68.75.Sir Walter Ralegh (1554?-1618).A vision upon this conceit of the Faery Queen.“Would I were changed into that golden shower”.The Advice.“What is our life? The play of passion,”.The Lie.To his love when he had obtained her.“Our passions are most like to floods and streams”.Books of the Ocean’s love to Cynthia.“Nature, that washed her hands in milk”.The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage.Sir Walter Ralegh, his verses written in his Bible a little before his death..Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth I.A Sonnet.An Answer..Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628).From Caelica.12.38.40.42.45.56.84.100.109..Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86).Astrophil and Stella..Anonymous.A New Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Greensleeves.“When Venus first did see”.Robert Greene (1558-1592).“Deceiving world, that with alluring toys”.Chidiock Tichborne (1558?-86).Tichborne’s Lament..Thomas Lodge (1558?-1625).Scylla’s Metamorphosis, interlaced with the unfortunate love of Glaucus..George Chapman (1559-1634).Ovid’s Banquet of Sense.The Argument.Narratio.Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561-1621).To the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney..Robert Southwell (1561-95).The Burning Babe..Samuel Daniel (1562-1619).Delia.An Ode..Michael Drayton (1563-1631).From Idea’s Mirror.“See, chaste Diana, where my harmless heart,”.“Sweet Secrecy, what tongue can tell thy worth?”.From Idea.To the Reader of his Poems.“Whilst thus my pen strives to eternize thee,”.“There’s nothing grieves me but that age should haste”.“Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part.”.Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester (1563-1626).“You that take pleasure in your cruelty”.Christopher Marlowe (1564-93).Elegia 5: Corinnae concubitus.Elegia 13: Ad Auroram, ne properet.Hero and Leander..Christopher Marlowe and Sir Walter Ralegh.The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd..Thomas Nashe (1567-1601).From Summer’s Last Will and Testament..Sir John Davies (1569-1626).“Faith (wench), I cannot court thy sprightly eyes”.“The sacred Muse that first made Love divine”.Barnabe Barnes (1571-1609).From Parthenophil and Parthenophe..John Donne (1572-1631).Satires I and III.The Perfume.“Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love,”.To his Mistress Going to Bed.Change.The Good Morrow.Song.Woman’s Constancy.The Sun Rising.The Indifferent.The Canonization.The Triple Fool.Air and Angels.Break of Day.The Anniversary.TwickenhamGarden.Love’s Growth.Confined Love.The Dream.The Flea.A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day.The Bait.The Apparition.A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.The Ecstasy.Love’s Deity.Love’s Diet.The Funeral.The Blossom.The Relic.A Lecture upon the Shadow..Richard Barnfield (1574-1627).From Cynthia.“Sweet coral lips where Nature’s treasure lies,”.“Thus was my love, thus was my Ganymede”.“Sighing and sadly sitting by my love,”.“Cherry-lipped Adonis in his snowy shape”.John Marston (1576-1634).The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion’s Image.Satire VI: Hem nosti’n..Anonymous.“Those whose kind hearts sweet pity did attaint”.“Come away, come, sweet love”.“Absence, hear thou my protestation”.Index of Titles and First Lines.