Nicholas Grimald

Nicholas Grimald (or Grimoald; 1519–1562) was an English poet and dramatist.

• What one art thou, thus in torn weed yclad?
  "Virtue, in price whom ancient sages had."
  Why poorly 'rayed? "For fading goods past care."
  Why double-faced? "I mark each fortune's fare."
  This bridle, what? "Mind's rages to restrain."
  Tools why bear you? "I love to take great pain."
  Why wings? "I teach above the stars to fly."
  Why tread you death? "I only cannot die."
  • "Description of Virtue". Tottel's Miscellany (1557)

• What sweet relief the showers to thirsty plants we see,
  What dear delight the blooms to bees, my true love is to me!
  As fresh and lusty Ver foul Winter doth exceed—
  As morning bright, with scarlet sky, doth pass the evening’s weed—
  As mellow pears above the crabs esteemèd be—
  So doth my love surmount them all, whom yet I hap to see!
  • "A True Love", l. 1. Tottel's Miscellany (1557)

• For many blessèd gifts, O happy, happy land!
  Where Mars and Pallas strive to make their glory most to stand!
  Yet, land, more is thy bliss that, in this cruel age,
  A Venus’ imp thou hast brought forth, so steadfast and so sage.
  • "A True Love", l. 11

• Among the Muses Nine a tenth if Jove would make,
  And to the Graces Three a fourth, her would Apollo take.
  • "A True Love", l. 15

• Let some for honour hunt, and hoard the massy gold:
  With her so I may live and die, my weal cannot be told.
  • "A True Love", l. 17

• A thousand doltish geese we might have spared,
  A thousand witless heads death might have found,
  A taken them for whom no man had cared,
  And laid them low in deep oblivious ground:
  But fortune favors fool, as old men say,
  And lets them live, and takes the wise away.
  • Barnabe Googe, "An Epitaph of the Death of Nicholas Grimald", l. 21 (1563)