Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Thomas Tomkins
John Wilbye
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
In the twilight of the English Renaissance, as the sun dipped behind the hills of a vanishing golden age, there stood a solitary figure whose music shimmered with the last glow of that era’s brilliance — Thomas Tomkins, composer, organist, and quiet poet of sound. Born in 1572, in the cathedral town of St. David’s, Wales, and passing into silence in 1656, in the shadowed aftermath of civil war and Puritan upheaval, T…
“To make the SemBrife Into two minums, The prick semBrife in to three”
In the twilight of the Elizabethan age, as the Renaissance bloomed in England with a brilliance rivaling that of Florence or Venice, a quiet, introspective composer emerged from the Suffolk countryside to leave an indelible mark on the history of English music. John Wilbye, born in 1574 and passing in 1638, was not a flamboyant courtier, nor a prolific pamphleteer, nor even a widely traveled virtuoso. He was, rather,…
About 438 km separate St. David's, Pembrokeshire, Wales from Palgrave, Suffolk, England. Both have ground in England.
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Thomas Tomkins: st. david's, wales, william byrd, gloucester cathedral, chapel royal, o sing unto the lord a new song, the triumphs of oriana, a sad pavan for these distracted times. John Wilbye: diss, finch family, sir thomas finch, eastwell park, the first set of english madrigals, sweet honey-sucking bees, lady, when i behold the roses sprouting, the second set of madrigals.
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
Notable events from the years they were both alive.
Thomas Tomkins: Sorrow, Tenderness, Joy. John Wilbye: Sorrow, Despair, Longing.
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