His own poems, though insignificant in respect to number and length, and not yet collected into a separate volume, or rarely accredited to Raleigh, deserve the distinct attention of the lover of English poetry, and leave such an impression on the mind that this leaf of his laurels, for the time, well nigh overshadows all the rest. In these few rhymes, as in that country he describes, his life naturally culminates and his secret aspirations appear. They are in some respects more trustworthy testimonials to his character than state papers or tradition; for poetry is a piece of very private history, which unostentatiously lets us into the secret of a man’s life, and is to the reader what the eye is to the beholder, the characteristic feature which cannot be distorted or made to deceive. Poetry is always impartial and unbiased evidence. The whole life of a man may safely be referred to a few deep experiences. When he only sings a more musical line than usual, all his actions have to be retried by a newer and higher standard than before.

The pleasing poem entitled A Description of the Country’s Recreations, also printed among the poems of Sir Henry Wotton, is well known. The following, which bears evident marks of his pen, we will quote, from its secure and continent rhythm:

FALSE LOVE AND TRUE LOVE

As you came from the holy land
Of Walsingham,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?

How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one,
As I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone.

She is neither white nor brown,
But as the heavens fair;
There is none hath a form so divine,
In the earth or the air.

Such a one did I meet, good Sir,
Such an angelic face;
Who like a queen, like a nymph did appear,
By her gait, by her grace:

She hath left me here all alone,
All alone as unknown,
Who sometimes did me lead with herself,
And me loved as her own:

What’s the cause that she leaves you alone,
And a new way doth take:
Who loved you once as her own
And her joy did you make?

I have loved her all my youth,
But now, old as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree:

Know that Love is a careless child
And forgets promise past,
He is blind, he is deaf, when he list,
And in faith never fast:

His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair,
And is lost with a toy.

Of women-kind such indeed is the love,
Or the word love abused;
Under which, many childish desires
And conceits are excused:

But true love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.