Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547)

picture of henry howard

Portrait of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (detail)
by Hans Holbein the Younger (1542/43)

return to sonnet central return to early sonnets
Visit Anniina Jokinen's Henry Howard page.

The Soote 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.
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 flete with new repaired scale;
The adder all her slough away she slings;
The swift swallow pursueth the flyes smale;
The busy bee her honey now she mings,
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale.
And thus I see among these pleasant things
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

"Love that doth reign and live within my thought"

Love that doth reign and live within my thought
And built his seat within my captive breast,
Clad in 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 shamefaced 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.

Note: The sonnet above is translated from Petrarch. Compare with Wyatt's sonnet "The long love that in my heart doth harbor..." or with a literal translation from the Italian.

"Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green..."

Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green
Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice,
In temperate heat where he is felt and seen;
In presence prest of people, mad or wise;
Set me in high or yet in low degree,
In longest night or in the shortest day,
In clearest sky or where clouds thickest be,
In lusty youth or when my hairs are gray.
Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell;
In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood;
Thrall or at large, alive whereso I dwell,
Sick or in health, in evil fame or good:
Hers will I be, and only with this thought
Content myself although my chance be nought.

Glossed Words (Click on title to return to poem.)

The Soote Season

soote, sweet; eke, also; turtle, turtledove; make, mate; brake, thicket; flete, float; mings, mingles or remembers(?).