Sir Walter Raleigh - Poems
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Classic Poetry Series Sir Walter Raleigh - poems - Publication Date: 2004 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Sir Walter Raleigh(1552 - 1618) Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England. Raleigh was born to a Protestant family in Devon, the son of Walter Raleigh and Catherine Champernowne. Little is known for certain of his early life, though he spent some time in Ireland, in Killua Castle, Clonmellon, County Westmeath, taking part in the suppression of rebellions and participating in a massacre at Smerwick. Later he became a landlord of properties confiscated from the Irish rebels. He rose rapidly in Queen Elizabeth I's favour, being knighted in 1585. He was involved in the early English colonisation of Virginia under a royal patent. In 1591 he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in- waiting, without the Queen's permission for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London. After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset. In 1594 Raleigh heard of a "City of Gold" in South America and sailed to find it, publishing an exaggerated account of his experiences in a book that contributed to the legend of "El Dorado". After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for allegedly being involved in the Main Plot against King James I, who was not favourably disposed toward him. In 1616 he was released in order to conduct a second expedition in search of El Dorado. This was unsuccessful and men under his command ransacked a Spanish outpost. He returned to England and, to appease the Spanish, was arrested and executed in 1618. Raleigh's poetry is written in the relatively straightforward, unornamented mode known as the plain style. C. S. Lewis considered Raleigh one of the era's "silver poets", a group of writers who resisted the Italian Renaissance influence of dense classical reference and elaborate poetic devices. In poems such as "What is Our Life" and "The Lie", Raleigh expresses a contemptus mundi (contempt of the world) attitude more characteristic of the Middle Ages than of the dawning era of humanistic optimism. But, his lesser- known long poem "The Ocean to Cynthia" combines this vein with the more elaborate conceits associated with his contemporaries Edmund Spenser and John Donne, expressing a melancholy sense of history. A minor poem of Raleigh's captures the atmosphere of the court at the time of Queen Elizabeth I. His response to Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 1 Shepherd to His Love" was "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd". "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" was written in 1592, while Raleigh's "The Nymph's Reply to The Shepherd" was written four years later. Both were written in the style of traditional pastoral poetry. They follow the same structure of six four-line stanzas employing a rhyme scheme of AABB. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 2 A Farewell To False Love Farewell, false love, the oracle of lies, A mortal foe and enemy to rest, An envious boy, from whom all cares arise, A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed, A way of error, a temple full of treason, In all effects contrary unto reason. A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers, Mother of sighs, and murderer of repose, A sea of sorrows whence are drawn such showers As moisture lend to every grief that grows; A school of guile, a net of deep deceit, A gilded hook that holds a poisoned bait. A fortress foiled, which reason did defend, A siren song, a fever of the mind, A maze wherein affection finds no end, A raging cloud that runs before the wind, A substance like the shadow of the sun, A goal of grief for which the wisest run. A quenchless fire, a nurse of trembling fear, A path that leads to peril and mishap, A true retreat of sorrow and despair, An idle boy that sleeps in pleasure's lap, A deep mistrust of that which certain seems, A hope of that which reason doubtful deems. Sith then thy trains my younger years betrayed, And for my faith ingratitude I find; And sith repentance hath my wrongs bewrayed, Whose course was ever contrary to kind: False love, desire, and beauty frail, adieu. Dead is the root whence all these fancies grew. Sir Walter Raleigh www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 3 A Literature Lesson. Sir Patrick Spens In The Eighteenth Century Manner VERSE I In a famed town of Caledonia's land, A prosperous port contiguous to the strand, A monarch feasted in right royal state; But care still dogs the pleasures of the Great, And well his faithful servants could surmise From his distracted looks and broken sighs That though the purple bowl was circling free, His mind was prey to black perplexity. At last, while others thoughtless joys invoke, Fierce from his breast the laboured utterance broke; "Alas!" he cried, "and what to me the gain Though I am king of all this fair domain, Though Ceres minister her plenteous hoard, And Bacchus with his bounty crowns my board, If Neptune still, reluctant to obey, Neglects my sceptre and denies my sway? On a far mission must my vessels urge Their course impetuous o'er the boiling surge; But who shall guide them with a dextrous hand, And bring them safely to that distant land? Whose skill shall dare the perils of the deep, And beard the Sea-god in his stormy keep? VERSE II He spake: and straightway, rising from his side An ancient senator, of reverend pride, Unsealed his lips, and uttered from his soul Great store of flatulence and rigmarole; -- All fled the Court, which shades of night invest, And Pope and Gay and Prior told the rest. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 4 Sir Walter Raleigh www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 5 A Vision Upon The Fairy Queen Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, Within that temple where the vestal flame Was wont to burn; and, passing by that way, To see that buried dust of living fame, Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept, All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen, At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept ; And from thenceforth those graces were not seen, For they this Queen attended; in whose stead Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce : Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief, And cursed the access of that celestial thief. Sir Walter Raleigh www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 6 As You Came From The Holy Land As you came from the holy land Of Walsingham, Met you not with my true love By the way as you came? 'How shall I know your true love, That have met many one, I went to the holy land, That have come, that have gone?' She is neither white, nor brown, But as the heavens fair; There is none hath a form so divine In the earth, or the air. 'Such a one did I meet, good sir, Such an angelic face, Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear By her gait, by her grace.' She hath left me here all alone, All alone, as unknown, Who sometimes did me lead with herself, And me loved as her own. 'What's the cause that she leaves you alone, And a new way doth take, Who loved you once as her own, And her joy did you make?' I have lov'd her all my youth; But now old, as you see, Love likes not the falling fruit From the withered tree. Know that Love is a careless child, And forgets promise past; He is blind, he is deaf when he list, And in faith never fast. His desire is a dureless content, And a trustless joy: He is won with a world of despair, And is lost with a toy. Of womenkind such indeed is the love, Or the word love abus'd, Under which many childish desires www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 7 And conceits are excus'd. But true love is a durable fire, In the mind ever burning, Never sick, never old, never dead, From itself never turning. Sir Walter Raleigh www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 8 Epitaph Even such is time, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord will raise me up, I trust. Sir Walter Raleigh www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 9 Even Such Is Time Even such is time, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord will raise me up, I trust. Sir Walter Raleigh www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 10 Farewell To The Court Like truthless dreams, so are my joys expir'd, And past return are all my dandled days; My love misled, and fancy quite retir'd-- Of all which pass'd the sorrow only stays.