I am reading Spenser’s Amoretti now: now I read what Raleigh read in prison; the coincidence is appropriate enough. There are not too many coincidences in life but there are many kinds of prisons. Perhaps the worst is the prison imprisoning the prisoner against his will; the other prison, self-germinated, self-maintained, can be as ascetic, as impassioned in its tortures, and yet it has its rush lamp for the outcast state:
Pour soul, the center of my sinful earth,
Thrall to these rebel powers that thee array.
Why dost thou pine...such a mistaken canister
Of words that I would not put them down once more.
January 15, 1616
Stratford—Henley Street
Viola bows rasped and recorders piped and rain hit the door and windows at Hall’s, the quartet playing before his fireplace, the men sitting with their backs to the blaze, instruments fired.