Poet’s Corner–Wyatt

8 January 2026

At this point, 12 years past, I decided to add a second weekly post; every Friday, I made a poetry post, in order to cover both parts of my writing, the first follows. After this post, we will simply call it the Poet’s Corner. Enjoy!

Friday Poet’s Corner, 24 January 2014

I thought to begin this first post of the Friday Poet’s Corner, in which I will share some of my favorite poems, with some of the classic love poems to honor the upcoming holiday dedicated to those who have love. This week’s poem is from Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, who was one of Henry VIII’s minister, at least until the king caught him dallying with one of his wives, the infamous Anne Boelyn, and Wyatt lost his head. Wyatt introduced the sonnet to England, using the Italian form, which we will examine in the coming weeks; he was also singlehandedly responsible for changing the meaning of the word “dangerous”–in Wyatt’s day, early in the 16th-century, to say that someone was “a dangerous man” implied that he was loyal to the king; however, as Wyatt discovered, being loyal to Henry wasn’t always a good thing, and so the meaning of “dangerous” changed to what it is today, someone that is trouble.

Here is one of Wyatt’s more famous poems, and one I like, that uses a hunting metaphor to describe the pursuit of the fairer sex–a very common conceit of the time period (and before and after). If you look at the art from Chaucer’s time forward into Wyatt’s time, many of the women are portrayed with a rabbit sitting in their laps, leading to the phrase, in Middle English, “huntynge the hare” (hunting the hare, or rabbit), but it was not the rabbit the hunters were after, rather it was what the rabbit concealed!

They Flee from Me

They flee from me, that sometime did me seek,
With naked foot stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them, gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thankèd be fortune it hath been otherwise,
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array, after pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she caught me in her arms long and small [slender],
Therewithal sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream, I lay broad waking,
But all is turned, thorough [through] my gentleness,
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go, of her goodness,
And she also to use newfangleness [fickleness].
But since that I so kindely [naturally] am servèd,
I fain would know what she hath deservèd.

Notice that these lines are an example of iambic pentameter, which was discovered by Chaucer and made famous by Marlowe, then used by every poet since, expressing the natural rhythms of English speech. Also, notice how the metaphor of the hunt is turned on its head, the poet/hunter becoming prey to she whom he hunted, in that empowering moment when she asks, “. . . how like you this?” The poet thinks it must be a dream, but realizes at once that he is wide awake, and instead of him letting her go, she ‘gives him leave’ to depart, and that “kindely” has many meanings, the ‘naturally’ referring straight to natural functions, of which the poet’s “hunt” is one of the more obvious! Until the next Poet’s Corner. . . .