Henry Howard

I never saw youe, madam, laye aparte Your cornet black in colde nor yet in heate Sythe first ye knew of my desire so greate which other fances chased cleane from my harte. Whiles to my self I did the thought reserve That so unware did wounde my…

Good ladies, you that have your pleasure in exile,
Step in your foot, come take a place, and mourn with me a while,
And such as by their lords do set but little price,
Let them sit still: it skills them not what chance come on the…

Suche waiwarde waies hath love that moste parte in discorde; Our willes do stand wherby our hartes but seldom dooth accorde.
Disceyte is his delight, and to begyle and mocke The symple hertes which he doth stryke with froward dyvers…

Love that doth reign and live within my
And 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.

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,

From Tuscan came my lady's worthy race;
Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat.
The western isle whose pleasant shore doth face
Wild Camber's cliffs, did give her lively heat.

The fansy, which that I haue serued long, That hath alway bene enmy to myne ease, Semed of late to rue vpon my wrong, And bad me flye the cause of my misease. And I forthwith dyd prease out of the throng, That thought by flight my painfull hart…

So cruel prison how could betide, alas,
As proud Windsor?
Where I in lust and joy
With a king's son my childish years did pass

Too dearly had I bought my green and youthful years,
If in mine age I could not find when craft for love appears;
And seldom though I come in court among the rest,
Yet can I judge in colors dim as deep as can the best.

Brittle beauty, that nature made so frail,
Whereof the gift is small, and short the season;
Flow'ring today, tomorrow apt to fail,
Tickle treasure, abhorrèd of reason;

Geue place ye louers, here before That spent your bostes and bragges in vaine: My Ladies beawtie passeth more The best of yours,
I dare well sayen, Than doth the sonne, the candle light: Or brightest day, the darkest night.
And thereto…

The golden gift that Nature did thee give
To fasten friends and feed them at thy will
With form and favour, taught me to believe
How thou art made to show her greatest skill

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.

Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice,
In temperate heat where he is felt and seen;
In presence prest of people, mad or wise;
Set me in high or yet in low degree,

My friend, 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; No charge of rule nor governance; Without disease the…

The sun hath twice brought forth the tender green,
And clad the earth in lively lustiness;
Once have the winds the trees despoiled clean,
And now again begins their cruelness

In Cypres springes, wheras dame Venus dwelt, A well so hote that who so tastes the same, Were he of stone, as thawed yse shuld melt, And kindled fynde his brest with secret flame; Whose moist poison dissolved hath my hate. This creping fier my…

Phylida was a faire mayde,
As fresh as any flowre;
Whom Harpalus the herdman
To be his paramour.

When ragyng loue with extreme payne Most cruelly distrains my hart: When that my teares, as floudes of rayne, Beare witnes of my wofull smart: When sighes haue wasted so my breath, That I lye at the poynte of death:
I call to minde the nauye…

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.

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 show so lively in mine eyes,
That now I sigh'd, and then I smil'd, as cause of thought did rise.