Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Through a series of like-minded stanzas, the speaker has reached the end of living the lie. At the end of each suggestion like telling leaders they care only for their own ambition or telling art that it does not exist on sound ground, but is subject to changes in taste, the speaker advises a variation upon the “tell them the lie” to any response to the contrary. In other words, if you want to be successful in life, you have to learn the art of the deal and the deal is always a lie.
A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers,
Mother of sighs, and murderer of repose,
A sea of sorrows whence are drawn such showers
As moisture lend to every grief that grows;
A school of guile, a net of deep deceit,
A gilded hook that holds a poisoned bait.
This is a poem that consists almost exclusively of metaphors. The first four stanzas of this five-stanza poem create through a repetition of similar construction a veritable wall of imagery that complements the tone of the opening line: “Farewell, false love, the oracle of lies.” The serpent, the murderer, the sea and the school here all join with a fortress, maze and quenchless fire elsewhere as examples of false love.
The world is very fair to see;
The Artist will not let it be;
He fiddles with the works of God,
And makes them look uncommon odd.
The critique of artistry that humorously pervades this short poem includes comparing an artist to an unhappy wife, transforming the natural beauty of God into something odd and representing things not as they are. The witty tone and rhyme indicates that Raleigh is being ironic. But is he?
I was a Poet!
But I did not know it,
Neither did my Mother,
Nor my Sister nor my Brother.
The Rich were not aware of it;
The Poor took no care of it.
Raleigh’s playful sense of humor is unquestionably on display here with another demonstration of the mastery of the rhyme. If one didn’t know better, one might well assume that this poem was the work of 20th century master of the humorous verse, Ogden Nash. It seem evidence enough that Nash was inspired and deeply influenced by this. Apparently, so was Walt Whitman. His “Song of Myself” is a completely different bird altogether, however.
Here lies the noble warrior that never blunted sword;
Here lies the noble courtier that never kept his word;
Here lies his excellency that governed all the state;
Here lies the L. of Leicester that all the world did hate.
One need not know the details of what Sir Walter Raleigh had exactly against Robert Dudley to appreciate the depth of his dislike of the Earl Leicester. They both vied for the attention of Queen Elizabeth, but in the end the history hardly matters. What lingers in the mind is that Raleigh—a poet and global adventurer as well as a politically astute courtier—really, really did not like this Earl of Leicester. And while most people have at least heard of Walter Raleigh, how many readers don’t have to do a quick internet search to find out who this Earl was?
