A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
I20 I will not weepe for twere as great a sin
Notes. This is accepted as the work of Henry King.
“On the Death of Sir W. Rawley”
I will not weepe for twere as great a sin
To shed a teare for thee, as to have binne
An Actor in thy death: thy life and age
Was but a various scene on fortunes stage.
With whom thou tugg’st and strov’st even out of breath.
5In thy longe toyle nere master’d untill death.
And thou despight of traynes1 and cruell witt
Thou didst at once subdue malice and it.
I doe not then so blacke thy memorie
To say I doe lament or pitty thee.
10Were I to choose a subject to bestow
My pitty on, he should be one as low
In spirit as desert, that durst not dye,
But rather were content by slaverie
To purchase life; or would I pitty those
15Thy most industrious and freindly foes,
That when they thought to make thee scandalls story
Wing’d thee with swifter flight for heaven and glory:
They that by cuttinge of some wither’d dayes
Which thou couldst spare, for to ecclipse thy prayse
20Yet gave it brighter, made thy aged fame
Appeare more white and fayre, then foule thy shame;
And did promote an Execution
Which but for them, Nature and age had donne.
Such poore cheape thinges as these were onely borne
25To live on Pittyes Almes to meane for scorne.
Source. BL Add. MS 22603, fols. 49v-50r
Other known sources. King 66; Ralegh, Poems 202; Bodleian MS CCC. 328, fol. 63r; Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. e.30, fol. 25r; Bodleian MS Malone 22, fol. 16r; Bodleian MS Rawl. D 954, fol. 35r; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 209, fol. 9v; BL Add. MS 58215, fol. 24r; BL Add. MS 62134, fol. 12r; BL MS Harley 3910, fol. 28r; BL MS Harley 6057, fol. 35r; BL MS Lans. 777, fol. 65v; Folger MS V.a.125, fol. 7r; Folger MS V.a.319, fol. 23v; Folger MS V.a.322, p. 50; Rosenbach MS 239/22, fol. 50v
I20
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