| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | A Passion of My Lord of Essex | | By Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1565–1601) |
| | | HAPPY 1 were he could finish forth his fate | |
| In some unhaunted desert, most obscure | |
| From all society, from love and hate | |
| Of worldly folk, there might he sleep secure; | |
| There wake again, and give God ever praise, | 5 |
| Content with hips and haws 2 and brambleberry, | |
| In contemplation passing still his days, | |
| And change of holy thoughts to make him merry. | |
| That when he dies, his tomb might be a bush, | |
| Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush. | 10 |
| | | Note 1. “This ‘passion’ is said to have been enclosed in a letter to Queen Elizabeth from Ireland in 1599.” (Hannah’s Courtly Poets, p. 177.) [back] | | Note 2. Hips and haws: The fruit of the wild-rose and hawthorn. [back] | | |
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