Elegy for Himself

Elegy for Himself

Tichborne was not even thirty when he was executed and his bitterness

at his life ending almost before it is begun can be seen. 'And now I

die and now I am but made:' He was sentenced to death for being part

of a Catholic plot to murder Elizabeth. He wrote this poem just three

days before he was to meet with death.

The tone of Tichborne's poem is one of regret and sorrow that his life

is being ended before it's time and that what is left of his life will

be very unpleasant.

In Elegy For Himself we can tell that its verses are sextains - six

lined verses with a rhyming scheme ababcc. What is both interesting

and unusual in Tichborne's structure is the strength of the caesura in

every line - the pause in the middle of a metrical line. The poem has

5 beats and adds to the melancholic feeling with its sad, slow rhythm.

When I read this poem and truly hear it, I picture a man huddled in

the corner of his cell, awaiting death, listening to the slow plodding

sounds of the jailor's feet, who comes to take yet another man to his

fate. I also can imagin...