“To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty”

By Aemilia Lanyer (1) Renowned empress, and great Britain’s Queen(2) Most gracious mother of succeeding king(3) Vouchsafe to view that which is seldom seen,(4) A woman’s writing of divinest things:(5) Read it, fair Queen, though it defective be,(6) Your Excellence can grace both it and me.

(7) For you have rifled Nature of her store,(8) And all the goddesses have dispossest(9) Of those righ gifts which they enjoyed before,(10) But now, great Queen, in you they all do rest.(11) If now they strived for the golden ball,(12) Paris would give it you before them all.

(13) From Juno you have state and dignities(14) From warlike Pallas, wisdom and fortitude;(15) And from fair Venus, all her excellencies;(16) With their best parts your Highness is indu’d(17) How much are we to honor those that springs(18) From such rare beauty, in the blood of kings?

(19) The Muses do attend upon your throne,(20) With all the artists at your beck and call’;(21) The sylvan gods, and satyrs every one,(22) Before your fair triumphant chariot fall:(23) And shining Cynthia with her nymphs attend(24) To honor you, whose honor hath no end.

(25) From your bright sphere of greatness where you sit,(26) Reflecting light to all those glorious stars(27) That wait upon your throne, to virtue yet(28) Vouchsafe that splendor which my meanness bars:(29) Be like fair Phoebe, who doth love to grace(30) The darkest night with her most beauteous face.

(31) Apollo’s beams do comfort every creature,(32) And shines upon the meanest things that be;(33) Since in estate and virtue none is greater,(34) I humbly wish that yours may light on me:(35) That so these rude unpolished lines on mine,(36) Graced by you, may seem the more divine.

(37) Look in this mirror of a worthy mind,(38) Where some of your fair virtues will appear;(39) Though all it is impossible to find, (40) Unless my glass were crystal, or more clear:(41) Which is dim steel, yet full of spotless truth,(42) And for one look from your fair eyes it su’th.

(43) Here may your sacred Majesty behold(44) That mighty Monarch both of heav’n and earth,(45) He that all nations of the world controlled,(46) Yet took, our flesh in base and meanest birth:(47) Whose days were spent in poverty and sorrow,(48) And yet all kings their wealth of him do borrow.comment

(49) For he is crown and crowner of all kings,(50) The hopeful haven of the meaner sort,(51) It’s he that all our joyful tidings bring(52) Of happy reign within his royal court:(53) It’s he that in extremity can give(54) Comfort to them that have no time to live.

(55) And since my wealth within his region stands,(56) And that his cross my chiefest comfort is,(57) Yea in his kingdom only rests my lands,(58) Of honor there I hope I shall not miss:(59) Though I on earth do live unfortunate,(60) Yet there I may attain a better state.

(61) In the meantime, accept most gracious Queen(62) This holy work, virtue presents to you,(63) In poor apparel, shaming to be seen,(64) Or once t’appear in your judicial view:(65) But that fair virtue, though in mean attire,(66) All princes of the world do moste desire.

(67) And sith all royal virtues are in you,(68) The natural, the moral, and divine,(69) I hope you plain soever, being true,(70) You will accept even of the meanest line(71) Fair virtue yields, by whose rare gifts you are(72) So highly graced, t’exceed the fairest fair.

(73) Behold, great queen, fair Eve’s apology, (74) Which I have writ in honor of your sex,(75) And do refer unto your Majesty,(76) To judge if it agree not with the text:

(77) And if it do, why are poor women blamed,(78) Or by more faulty men so much defamed?

(79) And this great lady I have here attired,(80) In all her richest ornaments of honor,(81) That you air Queen, of all the world admired,(82) May take the more delight to look upon her:(83) For she must entertain you to this feast,(84) To which your Highness is the welcomest guest.

(85) For here I have prepared my Paschal Lamb,(86) The figure of that living sacrifice;(87) Who dying, all th’infernal powers o’ercame,(88) That we with him t’eternity might riser:(89) This precious Passover feed upon, O Queen,(90) Let your fair virtues in your glass be seen.

(91) And she that is the pattern of all beauty,(92) The very model of your Majesty(93) Whose rarest parts enforceth love and duty,(94) The perfect patter of all piety:(95) O let, my book by her fair eyes be blest,(96) In whose pure thoughts all innocency rests.

(97) Then shall I think my glass a glorious sky,(98) When two such glitt’ring suns at once appear;(99) The one replete with sovereign majesty,(100) Both shining brighter than the clearest clear:(101) And both reflecting comfort to my spirits,(102) To find their grace so much above my merits;

(103) Whose unturned voice the doleful notes doth sing(104) Of sad affliction in an humble strain;(105) Much like unto a bird that wants a wing,(106) And cannot fly, but warbles forth her pain:(107) Or he that barred from the sun’s bright light,(108) Wanting day’s comfort, doth commend the night.

(109) So that live closed up in sorrow’s cell,(110) Since great Eliza’s favor blest my youth;(111) And in the confines of all cares do dwell,(112) Whose grieved eyes no pleasure ever view’th:(113) But in Christ’s suff’rings, such sweet taste they have,(114) As makes me praise pale sorrow and the grave.

(115) And this great lady who I love and honor,

(116) And from my very tender years have known,(117) This holy habit still to take upon her,(118) Still to remain the same, and still her own:(119) And what our fortunes do enforce us to,(120) She of devotion and mere zeal doth do.

(121) Which makes me think our heavy burden light,(122) When such a one as she will help to bear it:(123) Treading the paths that make our way go right,(124) What garment is so fair but she may wear it;(125) Especially for her that entertains(126) A glorious queen, in whom all worth remains;

(127) Whose power may raise your sad dejected Muse,(128) From this low mansion of a troubled mind;(129) Whose princely favor may such grace infuse,(130) That I may spread her virtues in like kind:

(131) But in this trial of my slender skill,(132) I wanted knowledge to perform my will.(133) For even as they that do behold the stars,(134) Not with the eye of learning, but of sight,(135) To find their motions, want of knowledge bars(136) Although they see them in their brightest light:

(137) So, though I see the glory of her state,(138) It’s she that ust instruct and elevate.

(139) My weak distempered brain and feeble spirits,(140) Which all unlearned have adventured, this(141) To write of Christ, and of his sacred merits,(142) Desiring that this book her hands my kiss:(143) And though I be unworthy of that grace,(144) Yet let her blessed thought this book embrace.

(145) And pardon me (fair Queen) though I presume,(146) To do that which so many better can;(147) Not that I learning to myself assume,(148) Or that I would compare with any man:(149) But as they are scholars, and by art do write,(150) So Nature yields my soul a sad delight.

(151) And since all arts at first from Nature came,(152) That goodly creature, mother of perfection,(153) Whom Jove’s almight hand at first did frame,(154) Taking both her and hers in his protection,

(155) Why should not she now grace my barren Muse,(156) And in a woman all defects excuse.

(157) So Peerless princess humbly I desire,(158) That your great wisdom would vouchsafe t’omit(159) All faults; and pardon if my spirits retire,(160) Leaving to aim at what they cannot hit:(161) To write your worth, which no pen can express,(162) Were but t’eclipse your fame, and make it less.