|
|
|
|
A SATIRE AGAINST THE CITIZENS OF LONDON.
LONDON ! hast thou accused me
Of breach of laws ? the root of strife !
Within whose breast did boil to see,
So fervent hot, thy dissolute life ;
That even the hate of sins, that grow
Within thy wicked walls so rife,
For to break forth did convert so,
That terror could it not repress.
The which, by words, since preachers know
What hope is left for to redress,
By unknown means it liked me
My hidden burthen to express.
Whereby it might appear to thee
That secret sin hath secret spite ;
From justice' rod no fault is free
But that all such as work unright
In most quiet, are next ill rest.
In secret silence of the night
This made me, with a rechless breast,
To wake thy sluggards with my bow :
A figure of the Lord's behest ;
Whose scourge for sin the Scriptures shew.
That as the fearful thunder's clap
By sudden flame at hand we know ;
Of pebble stones the soundless rap,
The dreadful plague might make thee see
Of God's wrath, that doth thee enwrap.
That pride might know, from conscience free,
How lofty works may her defend ;
And envy find, as he hath sought,
How other seek him to offend :
And wrath taste of each cruel thought,
The just shape higher in the end :
And idle sloth, that never wrought,
To heaven his spirit lift may begin :
And greedy lucre live in dread,
To see what hate ill got goods win.
The lechers, ye that lusts do feed,
Perceive what secrecy is in sin :
And gluttons' hearts for sorrow bleed,
Awaked, when their fault they find,
In loathsome vice each drunken wight,
To stir to God this was my mind.
Thy windows had done me no spight ;
But proud people that dread no fall,
Clothed with falsehood, and unright
Bred in the closures of thy wall.
But wrested to wrath in fervent zeal
Thou hast to strife, my secret call.
Indured hearts no warning feel.
O ! shameless whore ! is dread then gone ?
Be such thy foes, as mean thy weal ?
O ! member of false Babylon !
The shop of craft ! the den of ire !
Thy dreadful doom draws fast upon.
Thy martyr's blood by sword and fire,
In heaven and earth for justice call.
The Lord shall hear their just desire !
The flame of wrath shall on thee fall !
With famine and pest lamentably
Stricken shall be thy lechers all.
Thy proud towers, and turrets high
Enemies to God, beat stone from stone :
Thine idols burnt that wrought iniquity :
When, none thy ruin shall bemoan ;
But render unto the righteous Lord,
That so hath judged Babylon,
Immortal praise with one accord.
|
Source:
Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of.
The Poetical Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1854. 69-71.
| to Works of Henry Howard
|
Site copyright ©1996-2019 Anniina Jokinen. All Rights Reserved.
Created by Anniina Jokinen on January 13, 2001. Last updated on January 2, 2019.
|
|
The Tudors
King Henry VII
Elizabeth of York
King Henry VIII
Queen Catherine of Aragon
Queen Anne Boleyn
Queen Jane Seymour
Queen Anne of Cleves
Queen Catherine Howard
Queen Katherine Parr
King Edward VI
Lady Jane Grey
Queen Mary I
Queen Elizabeth I
Renaissance English Writers
Bishop John Fisher
William Tyndale
Sir Thomas More
John Heywood
Thomas Sackville
John Bale
Nicholas Udall
John Skelton
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Henry Howard
Hugh Latimer
Thomas Cranmer
Roger Ascham
Sir Thomas Hoby
John Foxe
George Gascoigne
John Lyly
Thomas Nashe
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
Richard Hooker
Robert Southwell
Robert Greene
George Peele
Thomas Kyd
Edward de Vere
Christopher Marlowe
Anthony Munday
Sir Walter Ralegh
Thomas Hariot
Thomas Campion
Mary Sidney Herbert
Sir John Davies
Samuel Daniel
Michael Drayton
Fulke Greville
Emilia Lanyer
William Shakespeare
Persons of Interest
Visit Encyclopedia
Historical Events
Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520
Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536
The Babington Plot, 1586
The Spanish Armada, 1588
Elizabethan Theatre
See section
English Renaissance Drama
Images of London:
London in the time of Henry VII. MS. Roy. 16 F. ii.
London, 1510, the earliest view in print
Map of England from Saxton's Descriptio Angliae, 1579
Location Map of Elizabethan London
Plan of the Bankside, Southwark, in Shakespeare's time
Detail of Norden's Map of the Bankside, 1593
Bull and Bear Baiting Rings from the Agas Map (1569-1590, pub. 1631)
Sketch of the Swan Theatre, c. 1596
Westminster in the Seventeenth Century, by Hollar
Visscher's Panoramic View of London, 1616. COLOR
|
|
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
