Sir Walter Raleigh: Her Reply

• Her Reply
• 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.

• But Time drives 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.

• Thy 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.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) was one of the most dynamic figures in English history. Besides being a statesman, an explorer and a close—some historians believe even intimate—associate of Queen Elizabeth I, Raleigh also was a poet of no small talent. Between exploring parts of New World and defending the English realm from Irish insurrections and Spanish armadas, Raleigh also found time to pen a few immortal poems, including “Her Reply,” a tongue-in-cheek response to Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.” In the end, however, the Spanish (and perhaps the Irish too) got theirs when, after breaking terms of a peace treaty between Spain and England while on a South American exploration, Raleigh was forced to return to England where he was beheaded for the sake of maintaining good English-Spanish relations.