Vaux was educated at Cambridge, and succeeded to the Barony of Harrowden in 1523. Like Wyatt and Surrey, Vaux devoted his public life to the service of King Henry VIII. Although his career in court was not so distinguished as that of his better known contemporaries, he nevertheless was important enough to accompany Cardinal Wolsey upon a mission to France; a few years later he was in the company that went with Henry to Calais while Wyatt was Marshal of Calais. He took his seat in the House of Lords in 1531, and was made Knight of the Bath in 1533.
Though none of Vaux’s work was printed in his lifetime, his reputation was considerable. This reputation was almost certainly based upon poems that have not come down to us; fewer than twenty poems can be very definitely attributed to Vaux, some of which appeared first in Tottel’s Miscellany and some of which appeared, in 1576, in The Paradise of Dainty Devices. Were it not for the meagerness of this body of work, Vaux’s reputation would probably be much larger; but those few poems that we do have are remarkable in themselves and good examples of Native style.
TEXT:
Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies’ Library, vol. iv, edited by A. B. Grosart (1884).
The Poems of Lord Vaux, edited by Larry P. Vonalt (1960).
When I look back and in myself behold
The wandering ways that youth could not descry,
And mark the fearful course that youth did hold,
And mette in mind each step youth strayed awry,
My knees I bow, and from my heart I call,
O Lord, forget these faults and follies all.
For now I see how void youth is of skill;
I see also his prime time and his end;
I do confess my faults and all my ill,
And sorrow sore for that I did offend.
And with a mind repentant of all crimes
Pardon I ask for youth, ten thousand times.
The humble heart hath daunted the proud time,
Eke wisdom hath given ignorance a fall,
And wit hath taught what folly could not find,
And age hath youth her subject and her thrall,
Therefore I pray, O Lord of life and truth;
Pardon the faults committed in my youth.
Thou that didst grant the wise king his request,
Thou that in whale, Thy prophet didst preserve,
Thou that forgavest the wounding of Thy breast,
Thou that didst save the thief in state to starve,
Thou only God, the Giver of all Grace,
Wipe out of mind the path of youth’s vain race.
Thou that by power to life didst raise the dead,
Thou that of Grace restorest the blind to sight,
Thou that for love, Thy life and love out bled,
Thou that of favor madest the lame go right,
Thou that canst heal and help in all assays,
Forgive the guilt that grew in youth’s vain ways.
And now since I, with faith and doubtless mind,
Do fly to Thee by prayer to appease Thy ire,
And since that Thee, I only seek to find,
And hope by faith to attain my just desire,
Lord, mind no more youth’s error and unskill,
And able age, to do Thy holy will.
NO PLEASURE WITHOUT SOME PAIN
How can the tree but waste and wither away
That hath not sometime comfort of the sun?
How can that flower but fade and soon decay
That always is with dark clouds over-run?
Is this a life? Nay, death you may it call
That feels each pain, and knows no joy at all.
What foodless beast can live long in good plight?
Or is it life where senses there be none?
Or what availeth eyes without their light?
Or else a tongue to him that is alone?
Is this a life? Nay, death you may it call
That feels each pain and knows no joy at all.
Whereto serve ears if that there be no sound?
Or such a head where no device doth grow?
But all of plaints, since sorrow is the ground,
Whereby the heart doth pine in deadly woe?
Is this a life? Nay, death you may it call
That feels each pain and knows no joy at all.
OF A CONTENTED MIND
When all is done and said, in the end thus shall you find,
He most of all doth bathe in bliss that hath a quiet mind:
And, clear from worldly cares, to deem can be content
The sweetest time in all his life in thinking to be spent.
The body subject is to fickle fortune’s power,
And to a million of mishaps is casual every hour:
And death in time doth change it to a clod of clay;
Whenas the mind, which is divine, runs never to decay.
Companion none is like unto the mind alone;
For many have been harmed by speech; through thinking, few or none.
Fear oftentimes restraineth words, but makes not thoughts to cease;
And he speaks best that hath the skill when for to hold his peace.
Our wealth leaves us at death; our kinsmen at the grave;
But virtues of the mind unto the heavens with us we have.
Wherefore, for virtue’s sake, I can be well content
The sweetest time of all my life to deem in thinking spent.
HE RENOUNCETH ALL THE EFFECTS OF LOVE
Like as the hart, that lifteth up his ears
To hear the hound that hath him in the chase,
Doth cast the wind in dangers and in fears
With flying foot to pass away apace,
So must I fly of love, the vain pursuit,
Whereof the gain is lesser than the fruit.
And I also must loathe those leering looks,
Where love doth lurk still with a subtle sleight,
With painted mocks, and inward hidden hooks,
To trap by trust that lieth not in wait—
The end whereof, assay it whoso shall,
Is sugared smart, and inward bitter gall.
And I also must fly such Circian songs
Wherewith that Circe, Ulysses did enchant;
These wily wits, I mean, with filëd tongues
That hearts of steel have power to daunt,
Whoso as hawk that stoopeth to their call
For most desert receiveth least of all.
But woe to me that first beheld those eyes,
The trap wherein I say that I was tane:
An outward salve which inward me destroys,
Whereto I run as rat unto her bane—
As to the fish sometime it doth befall
That with the bait doth swallow hook and all.
Within my breast, wherewith I daily fed
The vain repast of amorous hot desire,
With loitering lust so long that hath me fed
Till he hath brought me to the flaming fire.
In time, as Phoenix ends her care and carks,
I make the fire and burn myself with sparks.
THE AGED LOVER RENOUNCETH LOVE
I loathe that I did love,
In youth that I thought sweet,
As time requires for my behove,
Methinks they are not meet.
My lusts they do me leave,
My fancies all be fled,
And tract of time begins to weave
Grey hairs upon my head.
For age with stealing steps
Hath clawed me with his clutch,
And lusty life away she leaps,
As there had been none such.
My Muse doth not delight
Me as she did before;
My hand and pen are not in plight
As they have been of yore.
This youthly idle rhyme;
And day by day to me she cries,
“Leave off these toys in time.”
The wrinkles in my brow,
The furrows in my face,
Say, limping age will hedge him now
Where youth must give him place.
The harbinger of death,
To me I see him ride;
The cough, the cold, the gasping breath
Doth bid me to provide
A pickaxe and a spade,
And eke a shrouding sheet,
A house of clay for to be made
For such a guest most meet.
Methinks I hear the clerk
That knolls the careful knell,
And bids me leave my woeful work,
Ere nature me compel.
My keepers knit the knot
That youth did laugh to scorn,
Of me that clean shall be forgot
As I had not been born.
Thus must I youth give up,
Whose badge I long did wear;
To them I yield the wanton cup
That better may it bear.
Lo, here the barëd skull,
By whose bald sign I know
That stooping age away shall pull
Which youthful years did sow.
These crooked cares hath wrought,
And shippëd me into the land
From whence I first was brought.
And ye that bide behind,
Have ye none other trust:
As ye of clay were cast by kind,
So shall ye waste to dust.