On Monsieur's Departure
By Queen Elizabeth I
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet are not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breasts,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.
Many people forget that before Elizabeth(1533-1603) became queen, she spent time in the Tower of London as a prisoner. There were times that many wanted her to be executed so she could not achieve the crown. She learned strength in those dark days. She also knew that her father, King Henry the 8th executed her mother so he could get a new queen. Court politics could be deadly. Anne Boleyn could have saved her head if she would have agreed to take her daughter, Elizabeth out of the line of succession and declare her a bastard.
During her long life, Elizabeth pretended she would marry if she could find someone to marry. I don't think she ever had the intention of doing that. She would lose the power she had and end up back as someone's property to do as they wished as was done to her mother. She learned to be very careful and kept her own counsel. She could not trust anyone. If she loved, she had to do it in secret and she could not be alone with her amour. She slept with her ladies in waiting. She had to be above all gossip. That still did not keep the gossip from linking her with different men in her life, but nothing could be proved.
In this poem, she tells of her love but never says who. That would give too much power to someone. She had to sign the death warrant of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots and yet she agreed to the succession of Mary's son years later as her heir after her own death. People were happy that they would finally have a man as king but he was not as good as a king as Queen Elizabeth was as a ruler.
I think this poem shows that Elizabeth was a talented poet. England was well served by her rule as queen and few if any rulers performed their job as well as she did. Elizabeth is the author of speeches and letters as well as poems and they were crafted with great rhetorical skill and, in some cases, revised for publication. She was highly skilled in oration and the epistle and they were the basis in which she communicated her power. She had to walk the tightrobe of being the mother of her people, womanly and yet the master and in power without seemingly masculine. Many people felt she did so extremely well.
Overall, Queen Elizabeth was a signicant author in her own right as well as a major influence of the flowering of a great literary age known as the Elizabethan Age. It would be a mistake to downplay her influence during this important time.
By Queen Elizabeth I
I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet are not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breasts,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant.
Many people forget that before Elizabeth(1533-1603) became queen, she spent time in the Tower of London as a prisoner. There were times that many wanted her to be executed so she could not achieve the crown. She learned strength in those dark days. She also knew that her father, King Henry the 8th executed her mother so he could get a new queen. Court politics could be deadly. Anne Boleyn could have saved her head if she would have agreed to take her daughter, Elizabeth out of the line of succession and declare her a bastard.
During her long life, Elizabeth pretended she would marry if she could find someone to marry. I don't think she ever had the intention of doing that. She would lose the power she had and end up back as someone's property to do as they wished as was done to her mother. She learned to be very careful and kept her own counsel. She could not trust anyone. If she loved, she had to do it in secret and she could not be alone with her amour. She slept with her ladies in waiting. She had to be above all gossip. That still did not keep the gossip from linking her with different men in her life, but nothing could be proved.
In this poem, she tells of her love but never says who. That would give too much power to someone. She had to sign the death warrant of her cousin Mary Queen of Scots and yet she agreed to the succession of Mary's son years later as her heir after her own death. People were happy that they would finally have a man as king but he was not as good as a king as Queen Elizabeth was as a ruler.
I think this poem shows that Elizabeth was a talented poet. England was well served by her rule as queen and few if any rulers performed their job as well as she did. Elizabeth is the author of speeches and letters as well as poems and they were crafted with great rhetorical skill and, in some cases, revised for publication. She was highly skilled in oration and the epistle and they were the basis in which she communicated her power. She had to walk the tightrobe of being the mother of her people, womanly and yet the master and in power without seemingly masculine. Many people felt she did so extremely well.
Overall, Queen Elizabeth was a signicant author in her own right as well as a major influence of the flowering of a great literary age known as the Elizabethan Age. It would be a mistake to downplay her influence during this important time.
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