Poems by Queen Elizabeth I

All Poems Original Poems Translations

Answer to a Popish Priest, Giving Her Opinion on the Corporeal Presence

CHRIST was the Word that spake it;

He took the bread, and brake it:

And what that Word did make it,

That I believe, and take it.

by Queen Elizabeth I

Ah, Silly Pug, Wert Thou So Sore Afraid

Ah, silly Pug, wert thou so sore afraid?

Mourn not, my Wat, nor be thou so dismayed.

It passeth fickle Fortune’s power and skill

To force my heart to think thee any ill.

No Fortune base, thou sayest, shall alter thee?

And may so blind a witch so conquer me?

No, no, my Pug, though Fortune were not blind,

Assure thyself she could not rule my mind.

by Queen Elizabeth I

Written in her French Psalter

No crooked leg, no bleared eye,

No part deformed out of kind,

Nor yet so ugly half can be

As is the inward suspicious mind.

by Queen Elizabeth I

Written with a Diamond on her Window at Woodstock

Much suspected by me,

Nothing proved can be,

Quoth Elizabeth prisoner.

by Queen Elizabeth I

Oh, Fortune!

Oh, Fortune! how thy restlesse wavering state

Hath fraught with cares my troubled witt!

Witnes this present prisonn, whither fate

Could beare me, and the joys I quitt.

Thou causedest the guiltie to be losed

From bandes, wherein are innocents inclosed:

Causing the guiltles to be straite reserved,

And freeing those that death had well deserved.

by Queen Elizabeth I

Written on a Wall at Woodstock

Oh Fortune, thy wresting wavering state

Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit,

Whose witness this present prison late

Could bear, where once was joy's loan quit.

Thou causedst the guilty to be loosed

From bands where innocents were inclosed,

And caused the guiltless to be reserved,

And freed those that death had well deserved.

by Queen Elizabeth I

In Defiance of Fortune

Never think you fortune can bear the sway

Where virtue's force can cause her to obey.

by Queen Elizabeth I

The Doubt of Future Foes

The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,

And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;

For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb,

Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.

But clouds of joys untried do cloak aspiring minds,

Which turn to rain of late repent by changed course of winds.

The top of hope supposed the root upreared shall be,

And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly ye shall see.

by Queen Elizabeth I

When I Was Fair And Young

When I was fair and young, then favor graced me.

Of many was I sought their mistress for to be.

But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore:

Go, go, go, seek some other where; importune me no more.

How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe,

How many sighing hearts I have not skill to show,

But I the prouder grew and still this spake therefore:

by Queen Elizabeth I

On Monsieur's Departure

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,

I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,

I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,

I seem stark mute but inwardly to prate.

I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned.

Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun,

by Queen Elizabeth I