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Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

Written on a Wall at Woodstock


              1Oh Fortune, thy wresting wavering state
              2Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit,
              3Whose witness this present prison late
              4Could bear, where once was joy's loan quit.
              5Thou causedst the guilty to be loosed
              6From bands where innocents were inclosed,
              7And caused the guiltless to be reserved,
              8And freed those that death had well deserved.
              9But all herein can be nothing wrought,
            10So God send to my foes all they have thought.


Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Paul Hentzner, Itinerarium Germaniae, Galliae, Angliae, Italiae (Noribergae, 1612). B-10 5833 Fisher Rare Book Library [1629 edn.]
First publication date: 1612
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1996-2000.
Recent editing: 1:2002/4/18

Composition date: 1554 - 1555
Rhyme: ababccddee


Other poems by Elizabeth I