Gratuitous Tottel

Tottel's Miscellany, featuring the poetry of Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Surrey:




They flee from me, that sometime did me seek,
With naked foot stalking within my chamber:
Once have I seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not once remember,
That sometime they have put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand ; and now they range
Busily seeking in continual change.
--Thomas Wyatt


When youth had led me half the race
That Cupid's scourge had made me run;
I looked back to meet the place
From whence my weary course begun.
And then I saw how my desire
By guiding ill had led the way:
Mine eyes, too greedy of their hire,
Had made me lose a better prey.
--Henry Howard