I dye without desert - by Robert Southwell

If orphane Childe enwrapt in swathing bands
Doth move to mercy when forlorne it lyes
If none without remorse of love withstands
The pitious noyse of infantes selye cryes
Then hope my helplesse hart some tender eares [5]
Will rue thy orphane state and feeble teares.

Relinquisht Lamb in solitarye wood
With dying bleat doth move the toughest mynde
The gasping pangues of new engendred brood
Base though they be compassion use to finde [10]
Why should I then of pitty doubt to speede
Whose happ would force the hardest hart to bleede

Left orphane like in helplesse state I rue
With onely sighes and teares I pleade my case
My dying plaints I daylie do renewe [15]
And fill with heavy noyse a desert place
Some tender hart will weepe to here me mone
Men pitty may but help me god alone.

Rayne downe yee heavens your teares this case requires
Mans eyes unhable are enough to shedd [20]
If sorow could have place in heavenly quires
A juster ground the world hath seldome bredd
For right is wrong'd, and vertue wag'd with blood
The badd are blissd god murdred in the good.

A gracious plant for fruite for leafe and flower [25]
A peereless gemm for vertue proofe and price
A noble peere for prowesse witt and powre
A frend to truth a foe I was to vice
And loe alas nowe Innocente I dye
A case that might even make the stones to crye. [30]

Thus fortunes favors still are bent to flight
Thus worldly blisse in finall bale doth end
Thus vertue still pursued is with spight
But let my fall though ruefull none offend.
God doth sometymes first cropp the sweetest flowre [35]
And leaves the weede till tyme do it devoure

Notes

This poem is written in the first person and is believed believed to represent the thoughts of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, a contemporary of Robert Southwell. A short life of this remarkable Englishman follows below. For a short, informative film, see:Saint Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel English Martyr. Produced in 2011 by Mary's Dowry Productions.

Philip Howard - a short life

Philip Howard. Public Domain.

1557: born in Arundel House, the Strand, London. Philip was the only child of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and Mary FitzAlan, daughter of Henry, Earl of Arundel. He was baptized at Whitehall Palace and was named after his godfather, Philip II, King of Spain (who was married to Mary I from 1554 until her death in 1558).
1569: Philip Howard's father, the Duke of Norfolk, was arrested in 1569 for his intrigues against Queen Elizabeth.
1571: At the age of fourteen he was married to his stepsister, Anne Dacre, the Countess of Arundel and Surrey, who survived to 1630. She was a woman of remarkable generosity and courage, and became after her conversion the patroness of Father Southwell and of many priests, and eventually founded the novitiate of the Jesuits at Ghent.
1572: His father was beheaded for plotting to marry Mary Queen of Scots. His grandfather had been beheaded in 1547 on suspicion of treason. Two of his nieces married Henry VIII (Ann Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both beheaded).
1574: After a protestant education, he graduated from St John's College, Cambridge in 1574 and became a courtier to Queen Elizabeth I.
1580: Philip Howard succeeded to his mother's inheritance becoming Earl of Arundel
1581: He witnessed a debate in the Tower of London, between Father Edmund Campion, a Jesuit, Father Ralph Sherwin and a group of Protestant theologians. He was so impressed that he experienced a spiritual conversion to the Catholic faith. He renounced his previous life and was reconciled with his wife.

The inscription in the Beauchamp Tower at the Tower of London. PB 2018

1585: Fearing punishment. he tried to escape abroad but was betrayed and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Howard scratched into a wall of his cell the words:
Quanto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc saeculo, tanto
 plus gloriae cum Christo in futuro
  'the more affliction for Christ in this world, the more glory with Christ in the next'.
Arundell June 22 1587

gloria et honore eum coronasti domine

[5] What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him? [6] Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour: [7] And hast set him over the works of thy hands.[Psalm 8]

Note how Philip has intertwined 'eum' ('him') with his title-name Arundell, identifying himself personally with the words of the Psalmist and offering his humble thanks for the opporrtunity to win his crown of glory through suffering the love of his Saviour: 'Thou hast crowned me with glory and honour'.

In memoria aeterna erit justus

[7] The just shall be in everlasting remembrance: he shall not fear the evil hearing. His heart is ready to hope in the Lord: [8] His heart is strengthened, he shall not be moved until he look over his enemies. [9] He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor: his justice remaineth for ever and ever: his horn shall be exalted in glory. [10] The wicked shall see, and shall be angry, he shall gnash with his teeth and pine away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.[Psalm 111]

The last part of the inscription is very unclear. It is possibly a reference in Latin to his age: Aetatis Suae. He would have been approaching his thirtieth birthday at the date of this inscription.

Philip & his dog (PB after statue in Arundel)

1588: With the defeat of the Spanish Armada, a wave of anti-Catholicism swept the country and he was tried again, before King’s Bench, charged falsely with praying for a Spanish victory. Beset with lies and betrayed by former friends, Philip was unable to defend himself, and was found guilty. He was sentenced to the traitor’s death – to be hanged, drawn and quartered. He was to suffer a slow martyrdom, never knowing which day would be his last. He was comforted by his dog, which served as a go-between by which Howard and other prisoners, most notably the priest Robert Southwell. His last prayer to see his wife and only son, who had been born after his imprisonment, was refused except on condition of his converting to the Protestant Church, on which terms he might also go free. With this eloquent testimony to the goodness of his cause he expired, at the early age of thirty-eight, and was buried in the same grave in the Tower Church that had received his father and grandfather.

1595: Philip Howard died alone in the Tower of London on Sunday 19 October. Charges of high treason had never been proven. He had spent ten years in the Tower, until his death of dysentery. Some have suggested he was poisoned. He was buried without ceremony beneath the floor of the church of St Peter ad Vincula, inside the walls of the Tower.
1624: Twenty-nine years later, his widow and son obtained permission from King James I of England to move the body to the Fitzalan Chapel located on the western grounds of Arundel Castle. Some of his bones are also found within his shrine at Arundel Cathedral

Notes

[l1] & [l13] orphane/orphane-like: This may have a personal reference to Philip Howard himself.  He never knew his mother Mary, who died eight weeks after his birth. His father, Thomas Howard, was executed by Elizabeth in 1572, 13 years before his own imprisonment in the Tower. In an historical sense, Philip and other Catholics found themselves in a state analogous to that of orphans. They had deprived of their mother, the Catholic Church, and their Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ on earth.  They found themselves placed under a cruel step-mother, the illegitimate Queen Elizabeth, 'Supreme Governor' of the Church of England.
[l1] swathing bands: Although wrapping newborn babies in tight bands was the common practice in this era, there are perhaps echoes here of Luke's words:

[7] And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. [Luke 2]

Philip comes unto his own people but finds there is 'no room' or welcome in Elizabethan England and he has to find places where he can be lodged in secret.

[l4] sely: Innocent, harmless. Often as an expression of compassion for persons or animals suffering undeservedly. Deserving of pity or sympathy; pitiable, miserable, ‘poor’; helpless, defenceless.

[l6] rue: To regard or think of (an event, fact, etc.) with sorrow or regret; to wish that (something) had never taken place or existed. 1557   Earl of Surrey et al. Songes & Sonettes (new ed.) f. 90   It was the day on which the sunne..To rew Christs death amid his course gaue place vnto ye night.

[l7] Relinquisht Lamb: A possible echo here of Christ's own words:

[4] What man of you that hath an hundred sheep: and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost, until he find it? [5] And when he hath found it, lay it upon his shoulders, rejoicing: [6] And coming home, call together his friends and neighbours, saying to them: Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost? [7] I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance. [Luke 15]

Christ's true pastors came to England to find the lost sheep and bring them back to the one, true fold.

[ll9-10] brood: a family of young hatched at once, a hatch. Fig: Of human beings: family, children. The pitiful cries of newly engendered creatures, no matter how 'base' or low in the order of creation, or in reputation, stimulate a compassionate response.

[ll11-12]: speed:  intransitive. Of persons: To succeed or prosper; to meet with success or good fortune; to attain one's purpose or desire. Now arch. The sense then appears too be: My misfortune (happ) would force the hardest heart to bleed (with compassion); why should I doubt that this will not succeed in arousing pity (for me)?

[l16] a desert place: Possibly a reference to his close confinement in the Beauchamp Tower at the Tower of London from 1585-1595.

[l23] wag'd: waged.  to wage - To pay wages to. Now rare or Obsolete. 1585   T. Washington tr. N. de Nicolay Nauigations Turkie iii. xxii. 112 b   Besides that which is giuen vnto them of almes, they are waged either publikely, or of som in particular. ccc. 'and irtue is paid for in blood'.

[l24] blissd: blissed or blessed. To bliss - ,Transitive. To give joy or gladness to (orig. with dative); to gladden, make happy. (In 16–17th centuries blended with bless.) Obsolete.

[ll25-30]: There is something of a contrast between the words and images of this stanza and those of the previous: eg, orphane childe, feeble teares, helplelesse state, sighs, dying plaints and so on. This tension prepares for its resolution in the final stanza where 'worldly blisse in finall bale doth end.' It must be remembered that it is the poet who puts these words into Philip's mouth and they may be a reflection of the admiration Southwell had for this remarkable Earl.

[l30] A case that might even make the stones to crye: Even on a warm day, visitors to the Tower of London are aware of the cold stone blocks from which the towers are constructed. There is here perhaps a reference to the stones of the walls of the Beauchamp Tower wher philip and other recusants were imprisoned. Above the fireplace, Philip carved some words that may still be seen:

Quanto plus afflictiones pro Christo in hoc saeculo, tanto plus gloriae cum Christo in futuro – 'the more affliction for Christ in this world, the more glory with Christ in the next'

Philip entered the Tower where he would undergo his passion and his slow martyrdom. When Christ entered Jerusalem, He was approaching His Passion and death on the cross:

[37] And when he was now coming near the descent of mount Olivet, the whole multitude of his disciples began with joy to praise God with a loud voice, for all the mighty works they had seen, [38] Saying: Blessed be the king who cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory on high! [39] And some of the Pharisees, from amongst the multitude, said to him: Master, rebuke thy disciples. [40] To whom he said: I say to you, that if these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out. 

[l31] still: With reference to action or condition: Without change, interruption, or cessation; continually, constantly; on every occasion, invariably; always. Obsolete exc. poet. The favours of this life are always deflected in their flight and 'worldly bliss' ends in final 'bale'.

[l32] bale:  Evil in its passive aspect; physical suffering, torment, pain, woe.  Mental suffering; misery, sorrow, grief. Opposed alliteratively to bliss, blithe. a1577   G. Gascoigne Princelie Pleasures Kenelworth sig. B.iiiv, in Whole Wks. (1587)    And turne your present blysse to after bales.
1598   B. Yong tr. G. Polo Enamoured Diana in tr. J. de Montemayor Diana 440   That still deducts my life in blisselesse bale.