SPECIMENS
of
POETRY,
WRITTEN BY QUEEN ELIZABETH.
[_]
FROM THE CATALOGUE OF ROYAL AUTHORS, &c. &c.
[“Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall.”]
Sir Walter Raleigh having written in a window, in
sight of the Queen,—
“Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall.”
Her Majesty subjoined,—
“If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all.”
[Oh Fortune! how thy restless wavering state]
[_]
The following lines she wrote with charcoal on a window-shutter,
while under severe restraint at Woodstock:—
Oh Fortune! how thy restless wavering state
Has fraught with cares my troubled wit;
Witness this present prison, whither fate
Has borne me, and the joys I quit.
Thou causedst the guilty to be loosed
From bonds, wherein are innocent's inclosed;
Causing the guiltless to be strait reserved,
And freeing those that death had well-deserved;
But by her envy nothing can be wrought,
So God send to my foes all they have thought.
Elizabeth, Prisoner.
A.D. MDCL.
[I grieve, yet dare not shew my discontent]
[_]
The succeeding Stanzas, from the Ashmolean Museum,
signed “Eliza Regina, upon Mount Zeurs departure,”
may serve to show the state of Elizabeth's
heart, and the strength of her passions at fifty-two,
when, it is supposed, she entertained “an uncontrolable
passion, which carried her very absurd lengths,”
for the Duke of Anjou, between whom and herself
a treaty of marriage had been nearly concluded.
Civil and Military History of Great Britain.
I grieve, yet dare not shew my discontent;
I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate;
I dote, but dare not say I ever meant;
I seem stark mute, but inwardly do prate.
I am, and not,—I freeze, and am yet burned;
Since from myself my otherself I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying; flies when I pursue it;
Stands, and lies by me; does what I have done;
This too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion steals into my mind,
(For I am soft and made of melting snow);
Or be more cruel, love, or be more kind;
Let me, or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die, and so forget what love e'er meant.
She published a Comment on Plato: several Translations
from Greek to Latin; part of Sallust into
English; and many devotional Tracts, Letters, &c.
