Poem – Written with a Diamond on her Window at Woodstock

Much suspected by me,

Nothing proved can be, 

Quoth Elizabeth prisone

Poem – Ah Silly Pug Wert Thou So Sore Afraid

Ah, silly Pug, wert thou so sore afraid? 

Mourn not, my Wat, nor be thou so dismayed. 

It passeth fickle Fortune’s power and skill 

To force my heart to think thee any ill. 

No Fortune base, thou sayest, shall alter thee? 

And may so blind a witch so conquer me? 

No, no, my Pug, though Fortune were not blind, 

Assure thyself she could not rule my mind. 

Fortune, I know, sometimes doth conquer kings, 

And rules and reigns on earth and earthly things, 

But never think Fortune can bear the sway 

If virtue watch, and will her not obey. 

Ne chose I thee by fickle Fortune’s rede, 

Ne she shall force me alter with such speed 

But if to try this mistress’ jest with thee. 

Pull up thy heart, suppress thy brackish tears, 

Torment thee not, but put away thy fears. 

Dead to all joys and living unto woe, 

Slain quite by her that ne’er gave wise men blow, 

Revive again and live without all dread, 

The less afraid, the better thou shalt speed. 

Poem – Written In Her French Psalter

No crooked leg, no bleared eye,

No part deformed out of kind, 

Nor yet so ugly half can be

As is the inward suspicious mind. 

Poem – Oh Fortune

Oh, Fortune! how thy restlesse wavering state

Hath fraught with cares my troubled witt!

Witnes this present prisonn, whither fate

Could beare me, and the joys I quitt.

Thou causedest the guiltie to be losed

From bandes, wherein are innocents inclosed:

Causing the guiltles to be straite reserved,

And freeing those that death had well deserved.

But by her envie can be nothing wroughte,

So God send to my foes all they have thoughte.
signed – A. D. MDLV.

Elizabethe, Prisonner. 

Poem – In Defiance of Fortune

Never think you fortune can bear the sway

Where virtue’s force can cause her to obey. 

Poem – The 13 Psalm of David

Fools that true faith yet never had

Saith in their hearts, there is no God.

Filthy they are in their practice, 

Of them not one is godly wise.

From heaven the Lord on man did look

To know what ways he undertook.

All they were vain and went astray, 

Not one he found in the right way.

In heart and tongue have they deceit, 

Their lips throw forth a poisoned bait.

Their minds are mad, their mouths are wode, 

And swift they be in shedding blood.

So blind they are, no truth they know, 

No fear of God in them will grow.

How can that cruel sort be good, 

Of God’s dear flock which suck the blood? 

On him rightly shall they not call, 

Despair will so their hearts appall.

At all times God is with the just, 

Because they put in him their trust.

Who shall therefore from Sion give

That health which hangeth in our belief? 

When God shall take from his the smart, 

Then will Jacob rejoice in heart.

Praise to God. 

On Monsieur’s Departure – Queen Elizabeth I

I grieve and dare not show my discontent, 

I love and yet am forced to seem to hate, 

I do, yet dare not say I ever meant, 

I seem stark mute but inwardly to 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 breast, 

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 or 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.