My Friend, The Things That Do Attain

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 healthy life;

The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no dainty fare;

Wisdom joined with simpleness;

The night discharged of all care,

Where wine the wit may not oppress:

The faithful wife, without debate;

Such sleeps as may beguile the night;

Content thyself with thine estate,

Neither wish death, nor fear his might.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Translation of Petrarch's Sonnetto in Vita, 91

LOVE, that doth reign and live within my thought,

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.

But she that taught me love and suffer pain,

My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire

With shamefast look to shadow and refrain,

Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.

And coward Love, then to the heart apace

Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and plain,

His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.

For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pain.

Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:

Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Translation of Petrarch's Sonnetto in Vita, 95

SET me whereas the sun doth parch the green,

Or where his beams may not dissolve the ice,

In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen;

With proud people, in presence sad and wise,

Set me in base, or yet in high degree;

In the long night, or in the shortest day;

In clear weather, or where mists thickest be;

In lusty youth, or when my hairs be gray;

Set me in earth, in heaven, or yet in hell;

In hill, in dale, or in the foaming flood;

Thrall, or at large,--alive whereso I dwell;

Sick or in health, in ill fame or in good;

Yours I will be, and with that only thought

Comfort myself when that my hap is naught.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

On Sir Thomas Wyatt

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 of envy could obtain.

A head where wisdom mysteries did frame;

Whose hammers beat still in that lively brain

As on a stithy, where some work of fame

Was daily wrought, to turn to Britain's gain.

A visage stern and mild; where both did grow,

Vice to contemn, in vitrues to rejoice;

Amid great storms, whom grace assured so,

To live upright, and smile at fortune's choice.

A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme;

That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit;

A mark, the which--unperfited, for time--

Some may approach, but never none shall hit.

A tongue that served in foreign realms his king;

Whose courteous talk to virtue did enflame

Each noble heart; a worthy guide to bring

Our English youth, by trevail, unto fame.

An eye whose judgment no affect could blind,

Friends to allure, and foes to reconcile;

Whose piercing look did represent a mind

With virtue fraught, reposed, void of guile.

A heart where dread yet never so impressed

To hide the thought that might the truth avance;

In neither fortune lift, nor so repressed,

To swell in wealth, nor yield unto mischance.

A valiant corpse, where force and beauty met,

Happy, alas! too happy, but for foes,

Lived, and ran the race that nature set;

Of manhood's shape, where she the mold did lose.

But to the heavens that simple soul is fled;

Which left with such as covet Christ to know

Witness of faith that never shall be dead;

Sent for our health, but not received so.

Thus, for our guilt, this jewel have we lost;

The earth his bones, the heavens possess his ghost.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

The Soote [sweet] Season

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.          [turtledove to her mate]

Summer is come, for every spray now springs,

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings,

The fishes float with new repaired scale,

The adder all her slough away she slings,

The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale*,          [small]

The busy bee her honey now she mings*;          [mixes]

Winter is worn, that was the flowers' bale*.          [destroyer]

And thus I see among these pleasant things

Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Brittle Beauty

BRITTLE beauty that nature made so frail,

Whereof the gift is small, and short the season,

Flowering today, tomorrow apt to fail,

Tickle* treasure, abhorred of reason,          [fragile]

Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail,

Costly in keeping, passed not worth two peason*,          [peas]

Slipper* in sliding as is an eel's tail,          [slippery]

Jewel of jeopardy that peril doth assail,

False and untrue, enticed oft to treason,

Enemy to youth: that most may I bewail.

Ah, bitter sweet: infecting as the poison,

Thou farest as fruit that with the frost is taken:

Today ready ripe, tomorrow all to-shaken*.          [broken]

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Alas, so all things now do hold their peace

ALAS, so all things now do hold their peace,

Heaven and earth disturbed in nothing;

The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease;

The nighte's* chair the stars about doth bring.          [2 syllables]

Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less;

So am not I, whom love, alaw, doth wring,

Bringing before my face the great increase

Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing

In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease.

For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring,

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.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

The Sun Hath Twice

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,

Since I have hid under my breast the harm

That never shall recover healthfulness.

The winter's hurt recovers with the warm;

The parched green restored is with shade;

What warmth, alas, may serve for to disarm

The frozen heart that mine in flame hath made?

What cold again is able to restore

My fresh green years that wither thus and fade?

Alas, I see nothing to hurt so sore

But time sometime reduceth a return;

Yet time my harm increaseth more and more,

And seem to have my cure always in scorn.

Strange kind of death in life that I do try,

At hand to melt, far off in flame to burn;

And like as time list to my cure apply,

So doth each place my comfort clean refuse.

Each thing alive, that sees the heaven with eye,

With cloak of night may cover and excuse

Himself from travail of the day's unrest,

Save I, alas, against all others use,

That then stir up the torment of my breast

To curse each star as causer of my fate.

And when the sun hath eke the dark repressed

And brought the day, it doth nothing abate

The travail of my endless smart and pain.

For then, as one that hath the light in hate,

I wish for night, more covertly to plain

And me withdraw from every haunted place,

Lest in my cheer my chance should 'pear too plain;

And with my mind I measure, pace by pace,

To seek that place where I myself had lost,

That day that I was tangled in that lace,

In seeming slack that knitteth ever most;

But never yet the travail of my thought

Of better state could catch a cause to boast.

For if I find that sometime that I have sought

Those stars by whom I trusted of the port,

My sails do fall, and I advance right naught,

As anchored fast; my sprites do all resort

To stand atgaas*, and sink in more and more          [gazing]

The deadly harm which she doth take in sport.

Lo, if I seek, how I do find my sore.

And if I fly, I carry with me still

The venomed shaft which doth his force restore

By haste of flight. And I may plain my fill

Unto myself, unless this careful song

Print in your heart some parcel of my will.

For I, alas, in silence all too long

Of mine old hurt yet feel the wound but green.

Rue on my life, or else your cruel wrong

Shall well appear, and by my death be seen.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Too dearly had I bought

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.

Where grief torments the man that suff'reth secret smart,

To break it forth unto some friend it easeth well the heart.

So stands it now with me for my beloved friend:

This case is thine for whom I feel such torment of my mind,

And for thy sake I burn so in my secret breast

That till thou know my whole disease my heart can have no rest.

I see how thine abuse hath wrested so thy wits

That all it yields to thy desire, and follows thee by fits.

Where thou hast loved so long with heart and all thy power,

I see thee fed with feigned words, thy freedom to devour.

I know, though she say nay and would it well withstand,

When in her grace thou held the most, she bare thee but in hand.

I see her pleasant cheer in chiefest of thy suit;

When thou are gone I see him come, that gathers up the fruit.

And eke in thy respect I see the base degree

Of him to whom she gave the heart that promised was to thee.

I see, what would you more? stood never man so sure

On woman's word, but wisdom would mistrust it to endure.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Of thy life, Thomas, this compass well mark

[Note: Thomas was Surrey's Son]

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,

On shallow shores thy keel in peril freat*.          [to fret]

Whoso gladly halseth* the golden mean          [to embrace]

Void of dangers advisedly hath his home,

Not with loathsome muck, as a den unclean,

Nor palace-like whereat disdain may glome*.          [frown]

The lofty pine the great wind often rives;

With violenter sway fallen turrets steep;

Lightnings assault the high mountains and clives*.          [splits]

A heart well stayed, in overthwarts deep

Hopeth amends; in sweet doth fear the sour.

God that sendeth, withdraweth winter sharp.

Now ill, not aye thus. Once Phoebus to lour

With bow unbent shall cease, and frame to harp

His voice. In straight estate appear thou stout;

And so wisely, when lucky gale of wind

All thy puffed sails shall fill, look well about,

Take in a reef. Haste is waste, proof doth find.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey