Sir Edward Dyer wrote some of the most widely circulated and influential English verse of Elizabeth I's reign. His twelve canonical poems, with the four lyrics he may have written, rank among the finest love poems in what C. S. Lewis has called the "drab" or "plain" style that characterized English verse of the mid sixteenth century. But he, along with his friend Sir Philip Sidney, also cultivated what Lewis calls the "golden" style. Dyer's works were imitated or answered by such contemporary poets as Fulke Greville, King James VI of Scotland, Sir Francis Drake, and Robert Southwell. In addition to his close friendship with his fellow courtier poets Greville and Sidney, Dyer was well acquainted with such writers as Sir John Harington; Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Sir Robert Sidney; and Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex.

Born in October 1543 to Sir Thomas Dyer and his second...