A Passion of my Lord of Essex

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A Passion of my Lord of Essex (1599–1601)
by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

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This exists in nine manuscripts and was said to have been appended to a letter sent to Queen Elizabeth from Ireland, though it does not appear in the surviving manuscript. It may have been written prior to Essex's 1601 rebellion.^[1]

Notes

↑ Steven W. May, "The poems of Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford and Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex" in Studies in Philology, 77 (Winter 1980), Chapel Hill, p.92.

1474655A Passion of my Lord of Essex1599-1601Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

Happy were he could finish forth his fate
  In some unhaunted desert, where, obscure
From all society, from love and hate
  Of worldly folk; then might he sleep secure;
Then wake again, and ever give God praise,
  Content with hip, with haws, and bramble-berry;
In contemplation passing all his days,
  And change of holy thoughts to make him merry;
Who, when he dies, his tomb might be a bush,
Where harmless Robin dwells with gentle thrush.

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

[1] Steven W. May, "The poems of Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford and Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex" in Studies in Philology, 77 (Winter 1980), Chapel Hill, p.92.

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