Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554-1628). Myra. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1907. The Book of Elizabethan Verse

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William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Myra

By Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554–1628)


I, WITH 1 whose colours Myra dressed her head,
I, that wear posies of her own hand-making,
I, that mine own name in the chimneys 2 read
By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking:
Must I look on, in hope time coming may	5
With change bring back my turn again to play?

I, that on Sunday at the church-stile found
A garland sweet with true-love-knots in flowers,
Which I to wear about mine arms was bound
That each of us might know that all was ours:	10
Must I lead now an idle life in wishes,
And follow Cupid for his loaves and fishes?

I, that did wear the ring her mother left,
I, for whose love she gloried to be blamèd,
I, with whose eyes her eyes committed theft,	15
I, who did make her blush when I was namèd:
Must I lose ring, flowers, blush, theft, and go naked,
Watching with sighs till dead love be awakèd?

Was it for this that I might Myra see
Washing the waters with her beauties white?	20
Yet would she never write her love to me.
Thinks wit of change when thoughts are in delight?
Mad girls may safely love as they may leave;
No man can print a kiss: lines may deceive.

Note 1. There is a stanza in the original edition of Lord Brooke’s Works, 1633, between the third and fourth stanzas, which is omitted here, because the poem gains immensely by the omission, and it possesses allusions which have been impossible for any editor to make clear. Prof. Schelling prints the deleted stanza with his text of the poem in A Book of Elizabethan Lyrics, p. 221. [back]

Note 2. In the chimneys: cheminées, chimney-screens of tapestry work, i.e., Myra having embroidered his name upon the screen. [back]

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