‘I Ne Can Close in Short and Conning Vearse’: A New Poem for the Canon of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey?

Abstract

THE poem ‘I ne can close in short and conning vearse’ is printed in the ‘Uncertain Authors’ section of Tottel’s Songes and Sonnets ; it has a single manuscript source: the Arundel Harington MS, a poetic miscellany compiled over several decades, predominantly by the elder John Harington of Stepney and his son Sir John Harington of Kelston. 1 It is a twenty-six line poem in iambic pentameter, with the unusual rhyme scheme: ababccdcefefgghghigigjjkk . In its history the poem has been consistently classed as anonymous, by Tottel in its earliest print (1557), and in scholarship by Hughey, Ringler, and May. 2 However, I suggest that several features of this poem, in its content, its form, and in its early transmission in both manuscript and print, point to the fact that this is a poem written by Surrey, or—and this is equally possible—written in direct imitation of the poet. In its matter and style, the poem resembles one of Surrey’s best known sonnets: ‘From Tuscan came my ladies worthy race’. 3 This is clearest in the final couplet of each poem. Surrey’s sonnet ends: