How no age is content, Henry Howard

edited by Michael Dressler

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, lived between 1517 and 1547. He was born into nobility as the son to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and Elizabeth Stafford who was the daughter of the Duke of Buckingham and direct descendant of Edward III. After a privileged childhood, he enjoyed a colorful courtly career developing many friends as well as enemies. His death arose when he was charged with possibly trumped up charges of treason to which he unwaveringly maintained his innocence. Found guilty of using the royal arms on his escutcheon as well as planning to interfere with the rightful succession of Prince Edward, he was beheaded in 1547.
It is not known exactly when this poem was written. It was not published until ten years after Surrey's death in Richard Tottel's Songs and Sonnets written by the right honorable Lord Henry Howard, late Earl of Surrey, and other, now commonly known as Tottel's Miscellany (1557). Until this time, the poem, written in Poulter's measure, was only available to a select few in manuscript form. The manuscript used by Tottel to edit the poem later became known as the "Harrington Ms. No. 2." An exact copy labeled "Ms. 28635" resides in the British Museum. The manuscript, probably created around 1553, contains eighteen poems by Surrey as well as a number by Sir Thomas Wyatt and others.
Tottel's full title for the poem is, "How no age is content with his own estate, and how the age of children is the happiest, if they had skill to understand it." 

 
Laid in my quiet bed, in study as I were,
I saw within my troubled head a heap of thoughts appear;
  And every thought did show so lively in my eyes
That now I sighed and then I smiled as cause of thought [did] rise.
  I saw the little boy, in thought how oft that he			   5 
Did wish of God to 'scape the rod, a tall young man to be;
  The young man eke that feels his bones with pains oppressed,	 
How he would be a rich old man to live and lie at rest;
  The rich old man that sees his end draw on so sore,
How he would be a boy again to live so much the more.			10
  Whereat full oft I smiled to see how all these three,	
From boy to man, from man to boy, would chop and change degree;
  And musing thus, I think the case is very strange
That man from wealth to live in woe doth ever seek to change.  
  Thus thoughtful as I lay, I saw my withered skin			   15 
How it doth show my dented chaws, the flesh was worn so thin,		
  And eke my toothless chaps, the gates of my right way
That opes and shuts as I do speak, do thus unto me say:
  "Thy white and hoarish hairs, the messengers of age
That show, like lines of true belief, that this life doth assuage,	   20
  Bids thee lay hand and feel them hanging on thy chin,
They which do write two ages past, the third now coming in.
  Hang up, therefore, the bit of thy young wanton time,
And thou that therein beaten art, the happiest life define."
  Whereat I sighed and said "Farewell, my wonted joy.		           25 
Truss up thy pack and trudge from me to every little boy		
  And tell them thus from me their time most happy is,
If to their time they reason had to know the truth of this."

4. did] reads "doth" in first 1557 edition of Tottel; corrected in second 1557 edition and subsequent.
6. rod] an instrument of punishment, either one straight stick or a bundle of twigs bound together.
7. eke] also, furthermore.
12. chop and change] exchange or barter.
16. dented chaws] hollow jaws (that is, sunken cheeks).
17. chaps] jaws.
19. hoarish] grey or white with age.
20. assuage] lessen, diminish.
21. Bids] asks, commands.
22. write] designate.
23. bit] meaning unclear; principally the bit used to control a horse, but perhaps with the related idea of the biting sting of pain (from flogging?); the general sense is: cease thinking of youth only as a time of painfully inflicted control; wanton] self-indulgent.
24. define] decide, determine.
26. truss] tie in a bundle.

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