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The starred texts below contain the introductory stanza of six lines, "Our Passions are most like to floods and streams," sometimes given as "Passions are likened best to (unto) floods and streams." It will be noted that in every instance where the preliminary stanza is found, the poem is attributed to Ralegh.

1. British Museum, MS. Additional 10308, fols. 9v-10. This is a MS. of Ayton's poems compiled at some time shortly after 1660 by his nephew and heir, Sir John Ayton, who has frequently corrected the MS. at whim. His corrections in this poem are supported by manuscript tradition. See the notes to lines 26 and 28 of the poem. A transcription is given in The Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse, pp. 85-86.
2. B. M. MS. Additional 28622, fol. 18r-v. This is a MS. of Ayton's poems, compiled perhaps in the 1670's by a "naive" copyist. It represents a
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different MS. tradition from No. 1 and, at least for some poems, an older tradition before authorial revisions. For this poem it gives a text in substantial agreement with No. 1, but with a few errors of transcription.
3. Edinburgh University Library, MS. Laing III, 436, pp. 20-21. Headed: Songe. This is an early seventeenth-century poetical miscellany which is unusual in that it gives copies of 18 poems by Ayton, the largest number contained in any such miscellany. Some of the poems it gives are known otherwise only from the Ayton MSS., a fact which suggests that the compiler had unique access to Ayton's work. The texts of the poems given frequently differ substantially from the Ayton MSS. This may suggest either that the versions are early or that the copyist was careless. On the whole the former seems more likely, since the variant readings are always possible and sensible readings. The text which it gives of this poem is fair, but it introduces some unique readings and some blunders of transcription.
* 4. B. M. MS. Additional 25303, fol. 118r-v. Subscribed: Sir W: R.
* 5. B. M. MS. Additional 21433, fols. 112v-113v. Subscribed: Sir W: R. This manuscript has been shown by G. C. Moore Smith to be a transcript of the preceding,[1] although it does not follow slavishly. Several attempts are made in this poem to emend the more difficult and unacceptable readings of the preceding manuscript.
6. B. M. MS. Harley 6057, fol. 18. Headed: An Ode. Subscribed: S ir Walter Rawleigh. It generally follows Nos. 4 and 5 but introduces some unique readings of its own. It shows its affinity with 4 and 5, among other ways, by attempting to emend, with different results, the same readings which No. 5 emends.
7. MS. Folger 1.21, fols. 62-63. Subscribed: S:r Walter Raleigh.
8. MS. Folger 452.5, pp. 90-91. Headed: A silent wooer.
9. B. M. MS. Lansdowne 777, fol. 63r-v. Headed: To his Mistresse. Subscribed: Sr Wa: Raleigh. Nos. 7, 8 and 9 constitute a definite group.
* 10. MS. Folger 1.28, fol. 59. Headed: Sr Wa: Ral: To the sole Governess of His Affections.
* 11. Bodl. MS. Rawl. poet. 160, fol. 117. Headed: Sir Walter Raleigh to Queene Elizabeth.
* 12. B. M. MS. Additional 22602, fols. 30v-31. Headed: Sir Walter Ralegh to ye Queen. This is the text given in The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh, ed. Agnes M. C. Latham (1951), pp. 18-19.
13. MS. Corpus Christi College 328, fol. 78r-v. Headed: A paradox yt silence is ye best suiter.
14. MS. Additional 23229, fol. 54r-v.
15. MS. Additional 27407, fol. 129. Subscribed: finis quod sumbodie. In Scottish orthography. This is a curious text which shows almost complete independence when it diverges.
* 16. John Cotgrave, ed., Wits Interpreter, 1655, pp. 40-41 of the second numbering. Headed: To his Mistresse by Sir Walter Raleigh.

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17. Ibid., p. 68 of the second numbering. Headed: To his Mistress. A text without the preliminary stanza and without ascription to any author. It is a curious irony that the two main MS. traditions should be accidentally represented in this volume.
18. John Donne, the younger, ed., The Poems of Lord Pembroke and Sir Benjamin Ruddier, 1660, p. 35. The poem is given to Pembroke.
19. Westminster Drollery, The Second Part, 1672, pp. 129-131. Headed: Silence the best Wooer.
20. Huntington Library, MS. Huntington 198, part II, fols. 52v-53.