By Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder

The Lover Showeth How He Is Forsaken of Such as He Sometime Enjoyed 

     [They Flee from Me]

                    {Prob the man of cloth}

  "They flee from me, that sometime did me seek

With naked foot stalking within my chamber.

Once have I seen tem gentle, tame, and meek

That now are wild, and do not once remember

That sometime they have put themselves in danger

To take bread at my hand, and now they range,

Busily seeking in continual change" (Stanza 1, Verses 1-7)

    When we were read this poem sitting Indian-style on a hard wooden floor, the just an old fisherman in Shetland wool sweater had said, "We can take it slow," a Parks guard hands warming in trenchcoat pockets, white wooden musket perfectly aligned, stopped him as a Crossing Guard would.  One of thé children had asked her to find out if'n it'd be okay to ask questions.

  "Are you amenable kind sir?"

  "And accommodated miss"

  2025, my textbook tells me of Sir Thomas Wyatt The Elder (1503-1542).  Back in that treehouse our questions were sorted out by copies of the reading and us using a piece of paper folded into a triangle to virtually underline any word that caught our personal interests.

  "Wyatt was born at Allington Castle in Kent, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge.  He spent most of his life as a courtier and diplomat, serving King Henry VIII [that means eighth, 8th, Henry the 8th and it's written in Roman numerals] as Clerk of the King's Jewels and as ambassador to Spain and to Emperor Charles V" ( ).  "He was also a member of various missions to France and Italy.  He spent much of his adult life abroad; his interest in foreign literature, especially Italian, is evident from his translations and imitations of poems by the Italian sonneteers Petrarch, Sannazaro, Alamanni, and others.  The life of a courtier under Henry VIII was not a calm life: Wyatt was twice arrested and imprisoned, once in 1536, after a quarrel with the duke of Suffolk, and again in 1541, when he was charged with treason, lodged in the Tower of London, and stripped of all his property.  On both occasions he was fortunate enough to regain the king's favor and receive a pardon.  His praise of quiet retired life in the country and the cynical comments about foreign courts in his verse epistle to John Poins derive from his own experience" (461).

  I am reminded of our whole town of Huntington being mustered in the 1970's.  We were in a carefully arranged parade with sports and cultural clubs and asked to serve as long as we could.

  And also recall stories about Saratoga and other parts of upstate New York where so much had happened in history.  Garrisons and ballchains, colonials with ilks and loyalties far and not far from forts and surveyors.

  Turning back to the poem then...

Thankèd be fortune, it hath been otherwise, 

Twenty times better; but once especial,

In thin array, after a pleasant guise, 

When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small,

And therewithal, so sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?" (14)

It was no dream, for I lay broad awaking.

But all is turned now, through my gentleness, (verse 16)

Into a bitter fashion of forsaking. 

And I have leave to go, of her goodness, 

And she also to use newfangleness. 

But since that I unkindly so am servèd,

How like you this, what hath she now deserved? (21, p. 468) 

                                  Tottel, 1557

  I'm sure you can imagine a mix of day activities and all different persons trying to comprehend, What does it mean?

  A decree, an order, a rank and file resting amongst the wilderness.

  Somes killed before sir, whispered to a searching quartermaster.  Him not knowing how to take that exactly.  A voice squelchy from the changing weather and dry spaces, "Men or hogs?"

  'Neath a field canvas nurses awaiting immediate orders and silently cussing the undone tasks of others.  Plain clothed walkabouts reeking of temptations giving unrecorded word of train and bird.

  In Milton's Paradise Lost there is similar situation to how Boston underwent changes after Lexington happened.  For some it was a scramble into action, LOOK BUSY, Satan is entering our Garden of Eden.  And tell YOUR kinfolk....

  The Creature to Be Found

  Hath light All Around

  Of course, each message would be mostly plundered through for accent and meaning.  A young Nathaniel might have to wait until a neighbor's tea time to find his father working on side-to-job-hobbies.  Putting a twist on squared railing.  Checking on the womenfolk with men and boys in stocks.

  As in Dante's Inferno and New Orleans' Battelles we are given impressions (not imitations) and senses of, waiting places.  Allegories and metaphors, simile and image in word amount to dried food.  As we join human history in bloodlines and tradition we discover what has changed and what not about where we are going.

  "Now to th' ascent of that steep savage hill

  Satan had journeyed on, pensive and slow;

  But further way found none; so thick entwined, 

  As one continued brake; the undergrowth

  Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed

  All path of man or beast that passed that way.

  One gate there only was, and that looked east

  On th' other side; which when th' arch-felon saw, 

  Due entrance he disdained, and in contempt

  At one slight bound high overleaped all bound

  Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within

  Lights on his feet.  As when a prowling wolf, 

  Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, 

  Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve

  In hurdled cotes amid the field secure.... (Verses 172-186)