"England and Yesterday": A Book of Short Poems

Chapter 36: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SONG.

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About This Book

The collection gathers sonnets and shorter lyrics that observe English locales, chiefly London and Oxford, and move between public bustle and quiet precincts. Urban pieces register fog, crowds, docks, and social inequality alongside civic and ecclesiastical history; Oxford poems and pastoral lyrics dwell on college gardens, ancient churches, and memory. The verse balances formal sonnet discipline with lyrical interludes, employing vivid sensory detail and reflective, often elegiac tone. Recurring concerns include transience, the persistence of historical presence, spiritual consolation, and a moral awareness of poverty and beauty.

A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SONG.

She alone of Shepherdesses

With her blue disdayning eyes,

Wo’d not hark a Kyng that dresses

All his lute in sighes:

Yet to winne

Katheryn,

I elect for mine Emprise.

None is like her, none above her,

Who so lifts my youth in me,

That a little more to love her

Were to leave her free!

But to winne

Katheryn,

Is mine utmost love’s degree.

Distaunce, cold, delay, and danger,

Build the four walles of her bower;

She’s noe Sweete for any stranger,

She’s noe valley flower:

And to winne

Katheryn,

To her height my heart can Tower!

Uppe to Beautie’s promontory

I will climb, nor loudlie call

Perfect and escaping glory

Folly, if I fall:

Well to winne

Katheryn!

To be worth her is my all.