Personal Choice 75

To Mistress Margaret Hussey

Merry Margaret,

As midsummer flower,

Gentle as falcon

Or hawk of the tower:

With solace and gladness,

Much mirth and no madness,

All good and no badness;

So joyously,

So maidenly,

So womanly

Her demeaning

In every thing,

Far, far passing

That I can indite,

Or suffice to write

Of Merry Margaret

As midsummer flower,

Gentle as falcon

Or hawk of the tower.

As patient and still

And as full of good will

As fair Isaphill,

Coriander,

Sweet pomander,

Good Cassander,

Steadfast of thought,

Well made, well wrought,

Far may be sought

Ere that ye can find

So courteous, so kind

As Merry Margaret,

This midsummer flower,

Gentle as falcon

Or hawk of the tower.

John Skelton

John Skelton (c. 1463 - 1529), possibly born in Diss, Norfolk, was an English poet and tutor to King Henry VIII of England. Skelton died in Westminster and was buried in St. Margaret's Church, although no trace of the tomb remains.

Appears in almost all the anthologies I have opened since a child when I first read this in primary school. Full of music and delight – a dance around perhaps a maypole. Whatever and however we regard this poem now in a very different consciousness Skelton has given this remarkable woman a wonderful, deserved immortality.