William Strode Poems

Poems » william strode

William Strode
William Strode (1598-1645), English parliamentarian, second son of Sir William Strode, of Newnham, Devon (a member of an ancient family long established in that county), and of Mary, daughter of Thomas Southcote of Bovey Tracey in Devon. He was admitted as a student of the Inner Temple in 1614, matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1617, and took the degree of BA. in 1619. He was returned to parliament in 1624 for Beeralston, and represented the borough in all succeeding parliaments till his death. He from the first threw himself into opposition to Charles I and took a leading part in the disorderly scene of the 2nd of March 1629, when the speaker, Sir John Finch, refusing to put the resolution of Sir John Eliot against arbitrary taxation and innovations in religion, was held down in the chair (see Denzil Holles). Prosecuted before the star chamber, he refused "to answer anything done in the House of Parliament but in that House." On May 7 a fresh warrant was issued, and a month later, to prevent his release on bail, he was sent by Charles with two of his fellow members to the Tower. Refusing to give a bond for his good behaviour, he was sentenced to imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and was kept in confinement in various prisons for eleven years. In January 1640, in accordance with the king's new policy of moderation, he was liberated; and on April 13 took his seat in the Short Parliament, with a mind embittered by the sense of his wrongs. In the Long Parliament, which met on November 3 1640, he was the first to propose the control by parliament over ministerial appointments, the militia, and its own duration; supported the Grand Remonstrance of November 7, 1641; and displayed a violent zeal in pursuing the prosecution of Strafford, actually proposing that all who appeared as the prisoner's counsel should be charged as conspirators in the same treason." As a result he was included among the five members impeached by Charles of high treason on January 3, 1642. He opposed all suggestions of compromise with Charles, urged on the preparations for war, and on October 23 was present at the battle of Edgehill. In the prosecution of Laud he showed the same relentless zeal as he had in that of Strafford, and it was he who, on November 28, 1644, carried up the message from the Commons to the Lords, desiring them to hasten on the ordinance for the archbishop's execution. Strode did not long survive his victim. He is mentioned as having been elected a member of the assembly of divines on January 31 1645. He died on September 9 of the same year, and by order of parliament was accorded a public funeral in Westminster Abbey. The body was exhumed after the Restoration. Strode was a man of strong character, but of narrow, though clear and decided judgment, both his good and his bad qualities being exaggerated by the wrongs he had suffered: Clarendon speaks of him as a man "of low account and esteem," who only gained his reputation by his accidental association with those greater than himself; but to his own party his "insuperable constancie" gave him a title to rank with those who had, at a time when the liberties of England hung in the balance, deserved best of their country. The identity of the W Strode imprisoned in 1628 and of the W Strode impeached in 1642 has been questioned, but is now established (J Forster, Arrest of the Five Members, p 198, note; Life of Sir J. Eliot, ed. 1872, ii. 237, note; JL Sanford, Studies, p. 397; Gardiner, Hist. of England, ix. 223). On the other hand he is to be distinguished from Colonel Wm. Strode of Barrington, also parliamentarian and M.P., who died in 1666; and from William Strode (1602 or 1600-1645), the orator, poet and dramatist, whose poetical works were edited, with a memoir, by Bertram Dobell in 1907.

ode to a nightingale
 
 
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,... [read poem]
odeon a grecian urn
 
 
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylv... [read poem]
give me women, wine, and snuff
 
 
Give me women, wine, and snuff
Until I cry out "hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objectio... [read poem]
a thing of beauty is a joy for ever
 
 
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into not... [read poem]
on the grasshopper and the cricket
 
 
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And ... [read poem]
song: if you refuse me once, and think again
 
 
If you refuse me once, and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv'd, love is... [read poem]
why did i laugh tonight? no voice will tell
 
 
Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell
No God, no demon of severe response
Deigns to ... [read poem]
a supplement of an imperfect copy of verses of mr. william shakespear's, by the author
 
 
One of her hands one of her cheeks lay under,
Cosening the pillow of a lawful kiss,
Wh... [read poem]
last sonnet
 
 
Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,... [read poem]
la belle dame sans merci
 
 
O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'... [read poem]
song: out upon it, i have lov'd
 
 
Out upon it, I have lov'd
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,... [read poem]
song: why so pale and wan fond lover?
 
 
Why so pale and wan fond lover?
Prithee why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't mov... [read poem]
sonnet 1: dost see how unregarded now
 
 
Dost see how unregarded now
That piece of beauty passes?
There was a time when I d... [read poem]
on chloris walking in the snow
 
 
I saw fair Chloris walk alone,
Whilst feather'd rain came softly down,
And Jove descended ... [read poem]
to mrs. reynolds' cat
 
 
Cat! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
De... [read poem]
to autumn
 
 
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspirin... [read poem]
song: i prithee spare me gentle boy
 
 
I prithee spare me gentle boy,
Press me no more for that slight toy,
That foolish trifle o... [read poem]
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