Post 3- Genghis Goodman

Elegy for Philip Sidney

BY BARON BROOKE FULKE GREVILLE

Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage,

Staled are my thoughts, which loved and lost the wonder of our age;

Yet quickened now with fire, though dead with frost ere now,

Enraged I write I know not what; dead, quick, I know not how.

Hard-hearted minds relent and rigor's tears abound,

And envy strangely rues his end, in whom no fault was found.

Knowledge her light hath lost, valor hath slain her knight,

Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the world's delight.

Place, pensive, wails his fall whose presence was her pride;

Time crieth out, My ebb is come; his life was my spring tide.

Fame mourns in that she lost the ground of her reports;

Each living wight laments his lack, and all in sundry sorts.

He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind

A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined;

Declaring in his thoughts, his life, and that he writ,

Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit.

He, only like himself, was second unto none,

Whose death (though life) we rue, and wrong, and all in vain do moan;

Their loss, not him, wail they that fill the world with cries,

Death slew not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.

Now sink of sorrow I who live—the more the wrong!

Who wishing death, whom death denies, whose thread is all too long;

Who tied to wretched life, who looks for no relief,

Must spend my ever dying days in never ending grief.

Farewell to you, my hopes, my wonted waking dreams,

Farewell, sometimes enjoyëd joy, eclipsëd are thy beams.

Farewell, self-pleasing thoughts which quietness brings forth,

And farewell, friendship's sacred league, uniting minds of worth.

And farewell, merry heart, the gift of guiltless minds,

And all sports which for life's restore variety assigns;

Let all that sweet is, void; in me no mirth may dwell:

Philip, the cause of all this woe, my life's content, farewell!

Now rhyme, the son of rage, which art no kin to skill,

And endless grief, which deads my life, yet knows not how to kill,

Go, seek that hapless tomb, which if ye hap to find

Salute the stones that keep the limbs that held so good a mind.

This poem contains all of the three elements of an elegy: lament, admiration, and solace. This poem contains lament mostly in the first couple stanzas. Lament is showed from the very beginning by stating "Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage" showing the hard feeling that occured due to this tragedy. You get a further sense of lamentation as the writer transitions into the main part of the poem, saying "Enraged I write..."
The next element of an elegy is admiration. The writer described the dead in a very positive light, saying he was well minded, a good friend, and unique, saying "He was (woe worth that word!) to each well-thinking mind A spotless friend, a matchless man, whose virtue ever shined" the writer also listed the philips good qualities, saying "Highest conceits, longest foresights, and deepest works of wit"
The author demonstrates somewhat of solace by saying "farewell." "Farewell" having a positive connotation, the author doesn't end on a bitter note.

In conclusion, the point of this poem shows that a poem can be used to "vent" the negative emotions of  something tragic (such as the death of Philip Sydney).