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.
I24 I knew thee but by fame and thy brave deeds
Notes. The appearance of a comet—Halley’s comet, in fact—in English skies during November 1618 was widely intepreted by contemporaries as a providential sign forecasting the coming of war or the death of kings. So great and so politicized was the speculation, that James I composed a poem downplaying the comet’s significance (“You men of Britaine, wherefore gaze yee so”).
“On Sir Walter Raleigh who was beheaded a little before the appearance of the Commett”1
I knew thee but by fame and thy brave deedes,
Those spoke thee loude; For wheare trew worth exceedes,
It can not sleepe in Lethe.2 Who could but know
Thee for the Muses Freind, and Spaines Arch Foe?
Mee thinkes the old Heroes weighed with thee,
5Homer3 was out or they of meane degree;
Of witt and, Valour, Hee to patternes sett;
In thee both weare, and both more strongly mett:
Thou shamd’st his art, and spite of Rule or Fashion
Mad’st practise out goe speculation.
10And yett thou hadst so much Mortalletye
To dy; though not with out a prodegy.4
For thou (our Sunn) being sett, and darke Night come
An upstart starr would needes supply thy roome,
And lende that light wee mist; yet ’twould not bee,
15It shone bright, but not halfe so bright as thee:
It shone, but being outvied, itt streight was done,
As though a Meteor could out shine the Sunne.
Oh that I could tune out so full a straine,
As might become thy Ellegy. In vaine
20I wishe itt. Englandes Muse Raleigh is deade
And blow spilt the balme of that rare heade.
Source. Folger MS V.a.103, fol. 6v
Other known sources. Ralegh, Poems 200; Nottingham MS Portland PW V 37, p. 14
I24
1 Commett: Halley’s comet was visible in English skies in November 1618, indeed not long after Ralegh’s execution. <back>
2 Lethe: the river of hell whose waters induce forgetfulness. <back>
3 Homer: the ancient Greek epic poet. The libel is comparing Ralegh favourably to the heroes depicted in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. <back>
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