Poetry Codex

Tudor & Elizabethan

Francis Davison

c. 1575–c. 1619

Francis Davison (born about 1575; died in or before 1619) was the eldest son of William Davison, Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State, who was driven from office after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. He was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1593, wrote speeches for the Gray's Inn masque of 1594, and in May 1595 set out on his travels abroad.

In 1602 he published A Poetical Rhapsody, an anthology of his own poems, his brother Walter's, those of friends he names only 'Anomos', and pieces by Sidney, Campion, Raleigh, Donne and others; a second edition followed in 1608, a third in 1611, and a fourth in 1621, after his death. This page gathers the poems that A. H. Bullen's edition (1890–91) credits to Francis himself: the eclogues, sonnets, odes, madrigals, epigrams and elegies that carry his name.

Poems (85)

  1. Dedicatory Sonnet to William, Earl of Pembroke
  2. Strephon's Palinode
  3. Urania's Answer in Inverted Rhymes, Staff for Staff
  4. Eclogue (Eubulus)
  5. A Complaint
  6. Thisbe
  7. Clytemnestra to Her Son Orestes, Coming to Kill Her for Murdering His Father Agamemnon
  8. Ajax
  9. Romulus
  10. Fabritius Curio, Who Refused Gold of the Samnites, and Discovered to King Pyrrhus His Physician That Offered to Poison Him
  11. Cato Utican, Who Slew Himself Because He Would Not Fall into Caesar's Hands
  12. A Dialogue in Imitation of That between Horace and Lydia
  13. Though you be not content
  14. Borrowed out of a Greek Epigram
  15. Upon Her Dreaming That She Saw Him Dead
  16. The sound of thy sweet name, my dearest treasure
  17. When trait'rous Photine Caesar did present
  18. While love in you did live, I only lived in you
  19. To Mistress Diana
  20. Madrigal, upon His Departure
  21. Ad Aeliam
  22. A Monsieur Naso, Verole
  23. De Manuella
  24. De Milone
  25. De Codro
  26. Ad Quintum
  27. To A. S.
  28. To All Poor Scholars
  29. To His Friends
  30. In Cinnam
  31. De Philone
  32. Ad Pollionem
  33. Ad Pessimos Conjuges
  34. A Rule for Courtiers
  35. On a Painted Courtesan
  36. In Aulam
  37. For a Looking-Glass
  38. In Asinium
  39. On a Limping Cuckold
  40. On Crambo, a Lousy Shifter
  41. In Quintum
  42. In Sabam
  43. In Aulum
  44. Dedication of These Rhymes to His First Love
  45. That He Cannot Hide or Dissemble His Affection
  46. Upon His Absence from Her
  47. Upon Presenting Her with the Speech of Gray's-Inn Masque, at the Court, 1594
  48. Elegy: He Renounceth His Food, and Former Delight in Music, Poesy, and Painting
  49. To Pity
  50. Ode: That Only Her Beauty and Voice Please Him
  51. To Cupid
  52. Upon His Mistress' Sickness, and His Own Health
  53. He Begs a Kiss
  54. Upon a Kiss Received
  55. Ode: Upon Her Protestation of Kind Affection, Having Tried His Sincere Fidelity
  56. Ode: His Restless Estate
  57. Elegy, or Letter in Verse
  58. Ode: Being by His Absence in Italy Deprived of Her Looks, Words, and Gestures, He Desireth Her to Write unto Him
  59. Madrigal: Allusion to the Confusion of Babel
  60. Upon Her Acknowledging His Desert, yet Rejecting His Affection
  61. Her Answer in the Same Rhymes
  62. His Farewell to His Unkind and Unconstant Mistress
  63. A Prosopopoeia, wherein His Heart Speaks to His Second Lady's Breast
  64. Upon Her Giving Him Back the Paper whereon the Former Song Was Written, as though It Had Been an Answer Thereunto
  65. Commendation of Her Beauty, Stature, Behaviour, and Wit
  66. To Her Hand, upon Her Giving Him Her Glove
  67. Cupid Proved a Fencer
  68. Upon Her Commending (though Most Undeservedly) His Verses to His First Love
  69. He Compares Himself to a Candle-Fly
  70. Answer to Her Question, What Love Was
  71. Ode: That All Other Creatures Have Their Abiding in Heaven, Hell, Earth, Air, Water, or Fire, but He in All of Them
  72. Upon His Timorous Silence in Her Presence
  73. Upon Her Long Absence
  74. Upon Seeing His Face in Her Eye
  75. Upon Her Hiding Her Face from Him
  76. Upon Her Beauty and Inconstancy
  77. A Dialogue between a Lover's Flaming Heart and His Lady's Frozen Breast
  78. For What Cause He Obtains Not His Lady's Favour
  79. A Quatrain
  80. Sonnet to a Worthy Lord, Now Dead, upon Presenting Him, for a New Year's Gift, with Caesar's Commentaries and Cornelius Tacitus
  81. To Samuel Daniel, Prince of English Poets, upon His Three Several Sorts of Poesy
  82. Three Epitaphs upon the Death of a Rare Child of Six Years Old
  83. An Inscription for the Statue of Dido
  84. When I to You of All My Woes Complain
  85. An Epitaph upon the Heart of Henry the Third, Late King of France and Poland

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