Tudor & Elizabethan
Giles Fletcher the Elder
Giles Fletcher the Elder (c. 1549–1611) was an English diplomat, civil servant and poet. Educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, he served in Parliament and as a commissioner abroad, and in 1588–89 was Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to Russia. His account of that embassy, Of the Russe Common Wealth (1591), was suppressed at first and later became a much-read description of Muscovy.
His sonnet sequence Licia, or Poemes of Love (1593), issued with a verse dedication, an ode, a dialogue from Lucian, a love-maze and three elegies, is a modest, conventional Elizabethan love cycle; it was printed together with a historical complaint, The Rising to the Crowne of Richard the third. He was the father of the poets Giles Fletcher the Younger and Phineas Fletcher, and uncle of the dramatist John Fletcher.
Poems (61)
- To Licia the wise, kinde, vertuous, and fayre
- Sonnet I: Sadde all alone, not long I musing
- Sonnet II: Wearie was love, and sought to take
- Sonnet III: The heavens beheld the beautie of my
- Sonnet IIII: Love, and my love, did range the
- Sonnet V: Love with her haire, my love by
- Sonnet VI: My love amaz'd did blush her selfe
- Sonnet VII: Death in a rage, assaulted once my
- Sonnet VIII: Harde are the rockes, the marble, and
- Sonnet IX: Love was layd downe, all wearie fast
- Sonnet X: A paynter drew, the image of the
- Sonnet XI: In Ida vale three Queenes the shepheard
- Sonnet XIII: I wish sometimes, although a wortlesse thing
- Sonnet XIII: Inamour'd Iove, commaunding did intreat
- Sonnet XIIII: My love lay sleeping, where birdes musicke
- Sonnet XV: I stood amaz'd, and sawe my Licia
- Sonnet XVI: Graunt fayrest kind, a kisse unto thy
- Sonnet XVII: As are the sandes (faire Licia) on
- Sonnet XVIII: I sweare (faire Licia) still for to
- Sonnet XIX: That tyme (faire Licia) when I stole
- Sonnet XX: First did I feare, when first my
- Sonnet XXI: Lycia my love was sitting in a
- Sonnet XXII: I might have dyed, before my lyfe
- Sonnet XXIII: My love was maskt, and armed with
- Sonnet XXIIII: When as my love, lay sicklie in
- Sonnet XXV: Seven are the lights, that wander in
- Sonnet XXVI: I live (sweete love) whereas the gentle
- Sonnet XXVII: The Chrystal streames, wherein my love did
- Sonnet XXVIII: In tyme the strong and statelie torrets
- Sonnet XXIX: Why dy'd I not when as I
- Sonnet XXI: When as my Lycia sayled in the
- Sonnet XXXI: When as her lute is tuned to
- Sonnet XXXII: Yeares, months, daies, houres, in sighes I
- Sonnet XXXV: When as I wish, faire Licia for
- Sonnet XXXVI: Heare how my sighes, are ecchoed of
- Sonnet XXXVIII: I speake (faire Licia) what my torments
- Sonnet XXXVIII: Sweet, I protest, and seale it with
- Sonnet XXXIX: Faire matchlesse Nymph, respect but what I
- Sonnet XL: My griefe begunne (faire Saint) when first
- A Sonnet made vpon the two Twinnes, daughters of the Ladie Mollineux
- Sonnet XLI: If (aged Charon), when my life shall
- Sonnet XLII: For if alone thou thinke to waft
- Sonnet XLIII: Are those two starres, her eyes, my
- Sonnet XLIIII: Cruell fayre Love, I justly do complaine
- Sonnet XLV: There shone a Comet, and it was
- Sonnet XLVI: If he be dead, in whome no
- Sonnet XLVII: Lyke Memnons rocke toucht, with the rising
- Sonnet XLVIII: I saw (sweet Licia) when the spydar
- Sonnet XLIX: If that I dye (fayre Lycia) with
- Sonnet L: A Licia sigh, and say thou art
- Sonnet LI: When first the Sunne, whome all my
- Sonnet LII: O sugred talke, where with my thoughtes
- An Ode
- A dialogue betwixt two Sea-nymphes, Doris and Galatea
- A Lovers Maze
- An Elegie
- Elegie II
- Elegie III
- The Rising to the Crowne of Richard the third. Written by him selfe
- Sonnet XXXIII: I wrote my sighs, and sent them to my
- Sonnet XXXIV: Pale are my looks, forsaken of my life