Peele was born in London and spent his early years in that city as a student at Christ’s Hospital, a kind of orphanage for the very poor, where his father was a bookkeeper. He received an M.A. from Oxford, after which he returned to London, in 1581. For the next fifteen years he made a precarious living as a writer of court poetry, pageants, and plays. He was probably one of a coterie that included Marlowe, Green, and Thomas Nashe. Peele died at forty, impoverished and forgotten by his friends.
Peele is a minor dramatist, historically rather than intrinsically important. Because of his incessant struggles against poverty, his literary energies were directed away from the short poem; but of those that we have, most of which are songs from the plays, a few are remarkably delicate and moving.
TEXT:
The Works of Peele, in 2 vols., edited by A. H. Bullen (1888).
WHAT THING IS LOVE
What thing is love? for sure love is a thing.
It is a prick, it is a sting,
It is a pretty, pretty thing;
It is a fire, it is a coal,
Whose flame creeps in at every hole;
And as my wit doth best devise,
Love’s dwelling is in ladies’ eyes,
From whence do glance love’s piercing darts,
That make such holes into our hearts;
And all the world herein accord,
Love is a great and mighty lord;
And when he list to mount so high,
With Venus he in heaven doth lie,
And evermore hath been a god,
Since Mars and she played even and odd.
HIS GOLDEN LOCKS
His golden locks time hath to silver turned;
O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!
His youth ’gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing.
Beauty, strength, youth are flowers but fading seen;
Duty, faith, love are roots and ever green.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And, lover’s sonnets turned to holy psalms,
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are age’s alms.
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.
And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
He’ll teach his swains this carol for a song:
Blessed be the hearts that wish my sovereign well,
Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.
Goddess, allow this aged man his right
To be your beadsman now that was your knight.
Hot sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair;
Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me:
Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning,
Make not my glad cause cause of mourning.
Let not my beauty’s fire
Inflame unstaid desire,
Nor pierce any bright eye
That wandereth lightly.