The Dog That Bites Important People
One of the most memorable characters in Raleigh’s poetic canon is the titular character of “To a Lady with an Unruly and Ill-mannered Dog Who Bit Several Persons of Importance.” Not the lady, who is ironically of no importance, but her dog. Nor, for that matter, are the persons of importance important. The poem is all about the dog.
Queen Elizabeth
Most scholars agree that Elizabeth I is the actual “Cynthia” in the uncompleted fragment titled “The Ocean To Cynthia.” In it, Raleigh reflects upon his history of rising and falling fortunes of enjoying the grace of the monarch:
She is gone, she is lost, she is found, she is ever fair
Sir Philip Sidney
Raleigh composed two “epitaphs” which have withstood the ravages of time to be instrumental in academic appreciation of his poetry. These two poems could not be any more different. Sir Philip Sidney is often considered the second most important poet to the court of Queen Elizabeth, behind only Edmund Spenser and just ahead of Raleigh himself. Though rivals for the Queen’s affection, Raleigh held Sidney in high esteem as poet/adventurer like himself, immortalizing him verse like:
There didst thou vanquish shame and tedious age,
Grief, sorrow, sickness, and base fortune’s might;
Thy rising day saw never woeful night,
But passed with praise from off this worldly stage.
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester
The words of praise lavished upon a courtier who was an artistic rival take on an even starker relief when compared to a courtier who was a significant rival to all for the Queen’s attention:
Here lies the noble warrior that never blunted sword;
Here lies the noble courtier that never kept his word;
Here lies his excellency that governed all the state;
Here lies the L. of Leicester that all the world did hate.
Raleigh's contempt for Dudley as a warrior is a reference to his the Earl's being relieved in disgrace as commander of a force fighting against on charges of incompetence.
Sir Walter Raleigh
Just as some painters are as famous for their self-portraits as they are for other subjects, so is Raleigh’s poetry famous for being about himself centuries before the genre “confessional poetry” was even invented. Raleigh as a character in his own verse ranges from a figure of self-deprecating humor in “Song of Myself”:
I was a Poet!
But I did not know it,
Neither did my Mother,
Nor my Sister nor my Brother
to self-reflection in “Sir Walter Raleigh’s Pilgrimage”:
Blood must be my body’s balmer;
No other balm will there be given;
Whilst my soul, like quiet palmer,
Travelleth towards the land of heaven;
to self pity in “Farewell to the Court”
My lost delights, now clean from sight of land,
Have left me all alone in unknown ways;
My mind to woe, my life in fortune's hand
Of all which pass'd the sorrow only stays.
