SOURCE: Zitner, S. P. “Truth and Mourning in a Sonnet by Surrey.” ELH 50, no. 3 (autumn 1983): 509-29.

In the following essay, Zitner discusses Surrey's elegy to Thomas Clere, focusing particularly on his adaptation of the Italian sonnet form.

Norfolk sprang thee, Lambeth holds thee dead, Clere of the County of Cleremont though hight; Within the wombe of Ormondes race thou bread, And sawest thy cosine crowned in thy sight. Shelton for love, Surrey for Lord thou chase: Ay me, while life did last that league was tender; Tracing whose steps thou sawest Kelsall blaze, Laundersey burnt, and battered Bullen render. At Muttrell gates, hopeles of all recure, Thine Earle halfe dead gave in thy hand his Will; Which cause did thee this pining death procure, Ere Sommers four times seaven thou couldest fulfill.           Ah Clere, if love had booted, care, or cost,           Heaven had not wonn, nor Earth so...