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Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Quotes

d. 1547 England

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey KG (1516 / 1517 – January 19 1547) was an English courtier, soldier and poet. He invented blank verse, and along with Thomas Wyatt he introduced the sonnet to English poetry.

England
Poets

Random Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey quote

14 quotes

Death is a port whereby we pass to joy,
Life is a lake that drowneth all in payn.

England's Parnassus (1600)

The dint of swords from kisses seemèd strange.

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

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.

But by and by, the cause of my disease
Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting,
When that I think what grief it is again
To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
In prison pine, with bondage and restraint:
And with remembrance of the greater grief,
To banish the less, I find my chief relief.

Sith Nature thus gave her the praise,
To be the chiefest work she wrought,
In faith, methink, some better ways
On your behalf might well be sought,
Than to compare, as ye have done,
To match the candle with the sun.

London! hast thou accused me
Of breach of laws? the root of strife!
Within whose breast did boil to see,
So fervent hot, thy dissolute life.

Then think I thus: "Sith such repair,
So long time war of valiant men,
Was all to win a lady fair,
Shall I not learn to suffer then?
And think my life well spent to be,
Serving a worthier wight than she?"

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;
Summer is come, for every spray now springs.

Brittle beauty, that Nature made so frail,
Whereof the gift is small, and short the season;
Flowering to-day, to-morrow apt to fail;
Tickle treasure, abhorred of reason:
Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail;
Costly in keeping, past not worth two peason.

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.

I know she swore with raging mind,
Her kingdom only set apart,
There was no loss, by law of kind,
That could have gone so near her heart;
And this was chiefly all her pain:
"She could not make the like again".

O happy dames! that may embrace
The fruit of your delight;
Help to bewail the woful case,
And eke the heavy plight
Of me, that wonted to rejoice
The fortune of my pleasant choice:
Good ladies! help to fill my mourning voice.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.