[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)1. 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. 1 A small edition of this book has just (1883) been issued from the private press of the Rev. Henry Daniel, of Oxford. 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 wily wit to salve a sore, No shape to feed a loving eye; I see how plenty [surfeits] oft, Mishap doth threaten most of all; Content to live, this is my stay; I seek no more than may suffice; Some have too much, yet still do crave; They poor, I rich; they beg, I give; They lack, I leave; they pine, I live. Some weigh their pleasure by their lust, A cloaked craft their store of skill: My wealth is health and perfect ease: TO PHILLIS THE FAIR SHEPHERDESS. My Phillis hath the morning Sun, And Phillis hath morn-waking birds, My Phillis hath prime feathered flowers, 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, To yield some pity woo her! Tell her, her beauty dreads one. And if in life her love she nill agree me, HELEN'S EPITHALAMION. [From the Sixe Idillia.] Like as the rising morning shows a grateful lightening, 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, Doth cut from off the loom; nor any hath such songs and lays 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 Along the Sardine sea, that death of friends they may relate And let the spiders spread their slender webs in armories, And warlike Hiero. Ye Graces who keep resiance In the Thessalian mount Orchomenus, to Thebes of old |