Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1567-1600/1)
From my lady Elizabeth, viscountesse Purbec, repeated by her:—
1. There is none, oh none but you,
Who from me estrange your sight,
Whom mine eyes affect to view
And chained eares heare with delight.
2. Others’ beauties others move,
In you I all graces find:
Such are the effects of love
To make them happy that are kind.
3. Woemen in fraile beauty trust,
Only seeme you kind to me,
Still be truly kind and just
For that can’t dissembled bee.
4. Deare, afford me then your sight,
That surveighing all your lookes
Endlesse volumnes I may write
And fill the world with envyed bookes.
5. Which when after ages view
All shall wonder and despayre,
Women, to find a man so true,
And men, a woeman halfe so faire—
made by Robert, earl of Essex, that was beheaded.
Notes
830Ex registro capellae Turris London, scil. 1600831, ‘Robert, earle of Essex, beheaded, Febr. 6th.’
832The tradition is that the bell of Lincoln’s-Inne was brought from Cales (Cadiz), tempore reginae Elizabethae, plundered in the expedition833 under <Robert Devereux>, earl of Essex.