And yet, amid this languor of mystical tradition, a personal feeling had sway. In this spirit which imitated, and that badly at times, which still groped for an outlet and now and then admitted into its polished stanzas the old, simple expressions and stale metaphors of heralds of arms and _trouvères_, there was already visible the Northern melancholy, the inner and gloomy emotion. This feature, which presently, at the finest moment of its richest blossom, in the splendid expansiveness of natural life, spreads a sombre tint over the poetry of Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, already in the first poet separates this pagan yet Teutonic world from the other, wholly voluptuous, which in Italy, with lively and refined irony, had no taste, except for art and pleasure. Surrey translated the Ecclesiastes into verse. Is it not singular, at this early hour, in this rising dawn, to find such a book in his hand? A disenchantment, a sad or bitter dreaminess, an innate consciousness of the vanity of human things, are never lacking in this country and in this race; the inhabitants support life with difficulty, and know how to speak of death. Surrey's finest verses bear witness thus soon to his serious bent, this instinctive and grave philosophy. He records his griefs, regretting his beloved Wyatt, his friend Clère, his companion the young Duke of Richmond, all dead in their prime. Alone, a prisoner at Windsor, he recalls the happy days they have passed together: "So cruel prison how could betide, alas, As proud Windsor, where I in lust and joy, With a Kinges son, my childish years did pass, In greater feast than Priam's son of Troy. "Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour, The large green courts, where we were wont to hove, With eyes cast up into the Maiden's tower, And easy sighs, such as folk draw in love. "The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue, The dances short, long tales of great delight, With words and looks, that tigers could but rue; Where each of us did plead the other's right. "The palme-play, where, despoiled for the game, With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love Have miss'd the ball, and got sight of our dame, To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above.... "The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust; The wanton talk, the divers change of play; The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just, Wherewith we past the winter night away. "And with his thought the blood forsakes the face; The tears berain my cheeks of deadly hue: The which, as soon as sobbing sighs, alas! Up-supped have, thus I my plaint renew: "O place of bliss! renewer of my woes! Give me account, where is my noble fere? Whom in thy walls thou dost each night enclose; To other lief; but unto me most dear. "Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue, Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint."[295] So in love, it is the sinking of a weary soul, to which he gives vent: