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SIR EDWARD DYER.

[Born about 1550 at Sharpham near Glastonbury; educated at Balliol College, Oxford; ambassador to Denmark 1589; knighted 1596; died 1607.]

Sir Edward Dyer, 'for Elegy most sweete, solempne and of high conceit,' according to a contemporary judgment, makes the last in importance, though the first in date, of that trio of poet-friends celebrated in Sidney's well-known Pastoral:

'Join hearts and hands, so let it be:

Make but one mind in bodies three.'

Very little authentic verse of his is now extant, nor is it probable that he produced much. On the other hand he has been freely credited with verses that do not belong to him, especially with certain poems that are now known to be by Lodge. Mr. Grosart has collected twelve pieces which may be attributed to him with a fair amount of certainty. Of these '‘A Fancy' is interesting as having provoked a much better poem on the same model by Lord Brooke, and a later imitation by Robert Southwell. It is however too rambling and unequal for quotation. Dyer is now remembered by one poem only, the well-known 'My mind to me a kingdom is,' which though fluent and spirited verse, probably owes most of its reputation to the happiness of its opening. The little poem 'To Phillis the Fair Shepherdess' is in the lighter, less hackneyed Elizabethan vein, and makes a welcome interlude among the 'woeful ballads' which immediately surround it in England's Helicon, where it first appeared. Still, when all is said, Dyer, a man of action and affairs rather than of letters, is chiefly interesting for his connection with Sidney and Greville; and that stiff pathetic engraving of Sidney's funeral, which represents him as pall-bearer side by side with Lord Brooke, throws a light upon his memory that none of his poems have power to shed.

The last two extracts given below are taken from a book of which an apparently unique copy (dated 1588) is preserved in the Bodleian Library, under the title of Sixe Idillia (from Theocritus). Mr. Collier attributes this book to Dyer, on the ground of the initials E. D. given on the back of the title-page. This is weak evidence, but the fluency and sweetness of the translations make us loth to reject it.

MARY A. WARD

MY MIND TO ME A KINGDOM IS.

My mind to me a kingdom is,

Such present joys therein I find, That it excels all other bliss

That earth affords or grows by kind: Though much I want which most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,

No wily wit to salve a sore,

No shape to feed a loving eye;

To none of these I yield as thrall:

For why? My mind doth serve for all.

I see how plenty [surfeits] oft,

And hasty climbers soon do fall;

I see that those which are aloft

Mishap doth threaten most of all; They get with toil, they keep with fear; Such cares my mind could never bear.

Content to live, this is my stay;

I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies:
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store;

They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;

They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.

I laugh not at another's loss;

I grudge not at another's pain ;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain :
I fear no foe, I fawn no friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.

Some weigh their pleasure by their lust, Their wisdom by their rage of will; Their treasure is their only trust;

A cloaked craft their store of skill:

But all the pleasure that I find

Is to maintain a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease:
My conscience clear my chief defence;
I neither seek by bribes to please,
Nor by deceit to breed offence:
Thus do I live; thus will I die;
Would all did so as well as I!

TO PHILLIS THE FAIR SHEPHERDESS

My Phillis hath the morning Sun,
At first to look upon her:

And Phillis hath morn-waking birds,
Her rising still to honour.

My Phillis hath prime feathered flowers,
That smile when she treads on them:

And Phillis hath a gallant flock

That leaps since she doth own them.

But Phillis hath too hard a heart,
Alas, that she should have it!

It yields no mercy to desert

Nor grace to those that crave it.

Sweet Sun, when thou look'st on,
Pray her regard my moan!
Sweet birds when you sing to her

To yield some pity woo her!
Sweet flowers that she treads on,

Tell her, her beauty dreads one.

And if in life her love she nill agree me,
Pray her before I die, she will come see me.

HELEN'S EPITHALAMION.

[From the Sixe Idillia.]

Like as the rising morning shows a grateful lightening,
When sacred night is past and winter now lets loose the spring,
So glittering Helen shined among the maids, lusty and tall.
As is the furrow in a field that far outstretcheth all,

Or in a garden is a Cypress tree, or in a trace

A steed of Thessaly, so she to Sparta was a grace.

No damsel with such works as she her baskets used to fill,
Nor in a diverse coloured web a woof of greater skill

Doth cut from off the loom : nor any hath such songs and lays
Unto her dainty harp, in Dian's and Minerva's praise,
As Helen hath, in whose bright eyes all Loves and Graces be.
O fair, O lovely maid, a matron now is made of thee;
But we will every spring unto the leaves in meadows go
To gather garlands sweet, and there not with a little woe,
Will often think of thee, O Helen, as the sucking lambs
Desire the strouting bags and presence of their tender dams,
We all betimes for thee a wreath of Melitoe will knit,
And on a shady plane for thee will safely fasten it,
And all betimes for thee, under a shady plane below,
Out of a silver box the sweetest ointment will bestow;
And letters shall be written in the bark that men may see
And read, Do humble reverence, for I am Helen's tree.

THE PRAYER OF THEOCRITUS FOR SYRACUSE.

(Idyll 16.)

O Jupiter, and thou Minerva fierce in fight,

And thou Proserpina, who with thy mother hast renown
By Lysimelia streams, in Ephyra that wealthy town,
Out of our island drive our enemies, our bitter fate,

Along the Sardine sea, that death of friends they may relate
Unto their children and their wives, and that the towns opprest
By enemies, of th' old inhabitants may be possest:
That they may till the fields, and sheep upon the downs may bleat
By thousands infinite and fat, and that the herd of neat
As to their stalls they go may press the lingering traveller.
Let grounds be broken up for seed, what time the grasshopper
Watching the shepherds by their flocks, in boughs close sing-
ing lies,

And let the spiders spread their slender webs in armories,
So that of war the very name may not be heard again.
But let the Poets strive, King Hiero's glory for to strain
Beyond the Scythian sea, and far beyond those places where
Semiramis did build those stately walls and rule did bear.
'Mongst whom I will be one: for many other men beside
Jove's daughters love, whose study still shall be both far and wide,
Sicilian Arethusa with the people to advance

And warlike Hiero. Ye Graces who keep resiance

In the Thessalian mount Orchomenus, to Thebes of old
So hateful, though of you beloved, to stay I will be bold
Where I am bid to come, and I with them will still remain,
That shall invite me to their house with all my Muses' train.
Nor you will I forsake for what to men can lovely be
Without your company? The Graces always be with me.