Sir Walter Ralegh
Ralegh is not a major figure for the GRE, but “The nymph’s reply to the shepherd,” which is an answer to Marlowe’s”The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” is a GRE favorite, so definitely be able to identify, explain, and reference the poem. Since Donne, Herrick, and C. Day Lewis have all parodied Marlowe’s original, Ralegh contribution is highly noteworthy.
*“The nymph’s reply to the shepherd”
This poem was written in response to Marlowe’s poem,
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.
The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,—
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.
But could youth last and love still breed,
Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.
“To his son”
Three things there be that prosper up apace
And flourish, whilst they grow asunder far;
But on a day, they meet all in one place,And when they meet they one another mar:
And they be these: the wood, the weed, the wag.
The wood is that which makes the gallow tree;
The weed is that which strings the hangman’s bag;
The wag, my pretty knave, betokeneth thee.
Mark well, dear boy, whilst these assemble not,
Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild,
But when they meet, it makes the timber rot;
It frets the halter, and it chokes the child.
Then bless thee, and beware, and let us pray
We part not with thee at this meeting day.
The Author’s Epitaph, Made By Himself
Even such is time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but With age and dust,
Who in the dark and Silent grave
When we have wandered all Our ways
Shuts up the story of our days,
And from which earth, and grave, and dust
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
Vade Mecum 