A Sonnet a Day 3

That self same tongue which first did thee entreat
To link thy liking with my lucky love:
That trusty tongue must now these words repeat,
I love thee still, my fancy cannot move.
That dreadless heart which durst attempt the thought
To win thy will with mine for to consent,
Maintains that vow which love in me first wrought,
I love thee still and never shall repent.
That happy hand which hardely did touch
Thy tender body, to my deep delight:
Shall serve with sword to prove my passion such
As loves thee still, much more than it can write.
Thus love I still with tongue, hand, hart and all,
And when I chaunge, let vengeance on me fall.

This is by George Gascoigne, dated 1573. It's another one I can't really warm to. The technical expertise is obvious: the repetition and variation is well controlled while the use of alliteration is a bit over the top. Unlike many sonnets it's fairly clear in its intentions: it's a compliment to the beloved and an advertisement for the lover. I've tried hard to find double entendres and I think the "sword" in line 11 may obviously be one but it's a bit limp.

A Sonnet a Day - 2

Norfolk sprang thee, Lambeth holds thee dead,
Clere, of the County of Cleremont, though hight,
Within the womb of Ormond's race thou bred,
And saw'st thy cousin crowned in thy sight.
Shelton for love, Surrey for Lord thou chase;
Aye, me! whilst life did last that league was tender.
Tracing whose steps thou sawest Kelsall blaze,
Laundersey burnt, and batter'd Bullen render.
At Muttrel gates, hopeless of all recure,
Thine Earl, half dead, gave in thy hand his will;
Which cause did thee this pining death procure,
Ere summers four times seven thou couldst fulfill.
Ah, Clere! if love had booted, care, or cost,
Heaven had not won, nor earth so timely lost.

This, of necessity, heavily notated poem is by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey from the mid-16th century, and is a tribute to one of his soldiers, Thomas Clere. Even after getting past all the references and the englished placenames (Bullen = Boulogne, for example), I find it hard to warm to this. I imagine it spoke better to an age when brotherhood in arms was more important and the list of military triumphs was enough to evoke the love two comrades would have developed. We're given a list of experiences rather than personal qualities. We have to infer a lot. What I find most interesting is that Anne Boleyn turns up again: she was the "cousin crowned in thy sight". She was also often known as Anna Bullen, I believe, something that the editors seem to have missed.

A Sonnet a Day - introduction and no 1

As the lockdown continues, I've decided to pick up a book that's been lying on my floor for quite a while: The Art of the Sonnet by Stephen Burt and David Mikics, in which they look at one hundred "exemplary sonnets of the English language (and a few sonnets in translation)" and blog one of them a day. If I were Patrick Stewart I'd be reading them. Be thankful I'm not doing that. I'll stick to the ones in English and in the public domain (ie old). All comments welcome. 

"Whoso list to hunt" by Thomas Wyatt 

Whoso list to hunt: I know where is an hind,
But, as for me, helas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them, that farthest cometh behind
Yet, may I by no means, my wearied mind
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. 

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
"Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame."

There is a plausible autobiographical reading of the sonnet. Wyatt was suspected of being a lover of Anne Boleyn. He seems to have been lucky not to have been executed as a result. In the poem, if we see Boleyn as the beloved, it's clear that the speaker accepts his love is pointless (in vain) and indeed dangerous. Acknowledging his own also-ran status in the first eight lines, the final six sound a warning to others: this woman is "wild for to hold" or as we might say, if we were a 50s film noir, the dame is too hot to handle.

This poem was the Guardian's Poem of the Week in August 2009 and the thoughts of Carol Rumens are well worth reading.