"My Lute, Awake!" by Sir Thomas Wyatt (poetry reading)

It's a convention that a poet will refer to his muse as his "lute", his "lyre" or his "song": it doesn't usually mean a musical accompaniment. As in Milton's Lycidas, "Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string..."

Here's a link to the first publication:
http://www.archive.org/stream/miscellanysonges00tottuoft#page/64/mode/2up

"Think not alone under the sun unquit to cause thy lovers plain" is a baffling at first sight. "Unquit" means unresolved, "plain" means a complaint in the old-fashioned sense, like a sad song. In Gray's Elegy there's a line "The moping owl doth to the moon complain." So it means,"Don't think you are alone in not responding to your lovers' entreaties." He then suggests that she will suffer a similar fate when her beauty has faded and nobody cares: which would be poetic justice.

"Love's shot" is Cupid's arrow.

"Plaining" means complaining.

"told" meant counted - a teller counts money in a bank.

"list" means listen

Wyatt was a courtier and an ambassador for Henry VIII, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London when his friendship with Anne Boleyn made him the object of suspicion. While he was there five men were executed for being her lovers, all of them almost certainly innocent , then Anne herself was executed.

It's unlikely that this poem was written to Anne Boleyn because they did have a close relationship, but it was probably somebody like her so her portrait is included. .

The portrait of Sir Thomas was by Hans Holbein the Younger.

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• My Lute
• Awake! Sir Thomas Wyatt

[KTHubley]

where can you find the song ?

[SpokenVerse]

@KTHubley I added to the notes a link to the first publication. There's no original music and probably never was. I don't know whether anybody has ever sung it, nor to what tune.

[rgnolan20]

Its alright...but its no Pam Ayres!

[SpokenVerse]

So your beef is that it doesn't taste like mutton...

[jekk23]

Thankyou. I am glad to have found this.

[farida92]

We just took this poem in poetry class today, and I really enjoyed it.. but you really brought it to life with your reading, your voice is enchanting, it sounded as if you were Thomas Wyat himself, writing the poem with a broken heart.

I was wondering, because I do agree with what you say... it doesn't nessecarily need to refer to Anne Boleyn, but maybe he was referring to his wife Elizabeth?

[rgnolan20]

i'm kidding...it's very good!

[berlinerdom]

Dammit!!!\Good

[SuperBluehaze]

Thank you, for bringing these poems to life in such an excellent way. Not much Shakespeare, though; I have mentioned it before, but I guess you do not take requests, but I would love t hear you reciting one of two of Caliban's dialogues form "The Tempest".

Thank you for the beautiful recitations

[squirrly001]

Thank you so much!